Beginning U.S. genealogists soon learn that the 1890 census records were destroyed in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building on January 10, 1921. Many people who would like to see these records just shrug their shoulders and move on.

A short search on the Web, however, soon reveals that not all of the records were destroyed. In fact, census fragments for 1890 in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and the District of Columbia survived and are available now.

The morning after the fire 1921 fire, Census Director Sam Rogers reported the extensive damage to the 1890 schedules, estimating that only 25 percent of the records were destroyed, with 50 percent of the remainder damaged by water, smoke, and fire. Salvage of the water-soaked and charred documents might be possible, reported the bureau, but saving even a small part would take a month, and it would take two to three years to copy and save all the records damaged in the fire. The preliminary assessment of Census Bureau Clerk T. J. Fitzgerald was far more sobering. Fitzgerald told reporters that the priceless 1890 records were "certain to be absolutely ruined. There is no method of restoring the legibility of a water-soaked volume."

Had the fire occurred in the year 2024, many of the volumes could have been saved. Today, water-soaked documents can be freeze dried, removing the water without creating additional damage to the pages. Unfortunately, such technology was not available in 1921.

Speculation and rumors about the cause of the blaze varied widely. Many suspected that a carelessly discarded cigarette or a lighted match was the cause. Employees were questioned about their smoking habits. Others believed the fire started among shavings in the carpenter shop or resulted from spontaneous combustion. At least one woman from Ohio felt certain the fire was part of a conspiracy to defraud her family of their rightful estate by destroying every vestige of evidence proving heirship! However, the true cause of the fire was never proven. 

At the end of January 1921, the records damaged in the fire were moved for temporary storage. Over the next few months, rumors spread that salvage attempts would not be made and that Census Director Sam Rogers had recommended that Congress authorize destruction of the 1890 census. Prominent historians, attorneys, and genealogical organizations wrote in protest to Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the Librarian of Congress, and other government officials. The National Genealogical Society and the Daughters of the American Revolution formally petitioned Hoover and Congress, and the editor of the NGS Quarterly warned that a nationwide movement would begin among state societies and the press if Congress seriously considered destruction. The National Archives quickly denied that the records would be destroyed.

By May of 1921, the records were still piled in a large warehouse without proper storage. The records were quickly deteriorating as summer heat approached in the non-air conditioned warehouse. Census Director William Steuart ordered that the damaged records be transferred back to the census building, to be bound where possible, but at least put in some order for reference.

The water-soaked records remained at the census building for nearly eleven years, apparently not well cared for. In December 1932, in accordance with federal records procedures at the time, the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of Census sent the Librarian of Congress a list of papers no longer necessary for current business and scheduled for destruction. He asked the Librarian to report back to him any documents that should be retained for their historical interest. Item 22 on the list for Bureau of the Census read "Schedules, Population . . . 1890, Original." 

The Librarian identified no records as permanent; the list was sent forward, and Congress authorized destruction of the remaining 1890 census records on February 21, 1933. Despite assurance by census officials in 1921 that the damaged records would not be destroyed, government bureaucrats did exactly that in the 1930s. Even worse, damaged and undamaged pages alike were destroyed. The entire process was not well publicized, with only minor notes buried inside governmental reports. The date of the actual destruction of the 1890 census records was never recorded although it probably was in 1935.

It seems sad that Washington bureaucrats quietly destroyed these valuable records without public review and scrutiny. However, the story does not end there. The bureaucrats overlooked some records! In 1953 National Archives found an additional set of 1890 census record fragments. These sets of extant fragments are from Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and the District of Columbia. These surviving fragments were preserved and microfilmed. They are still available today, despite the "common knowledge" that the 1890 U.S. Census was destroyed in a fire. 

Before you disregard this census, you should always verify that the schedules you seek did not survive. If you are looking for ancestors in 1890 in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, or the District of Columbia, you might have a pleasant surprise. Be aware that the surviving records are only a tiny fraction of the total records, even for those states. For the General Population Census Schedules, more than 6,160 persons are included in the surviving fragments. 

Admittedly, these are very small fragments of the original records. Small fragments also have been preserved of the following 1890 records:

Schedules of Union Civil War Veterans or their widows

Oklahoma territorial schedules

List of selected Delaware African-Americans,

Statistics of Lutheran congregations

Statistical information for the entire United States

You won't know if your ancestors' records are still available until you check. 

You can view National Archives Microfilm Publication M407 (3 rolls) and a corresponding index, National Archives Microfilm Publication M496 (2 rolls). Both microfilm series can be viewed at the National Archives, at the regional archives, at the thousands of LDS Family History Centers around the world, and at several other repositories.

For more information, look at the National Archives' web site at https://www.archives.gov/research/census/microfilm-catalog/1790-1890/part-08.

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

Last week Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan announced a new Strategic Framework for the National Archives. The framework, a template that will guide the development of a full Strategic Plan, charts a course for the agency that emphasizes building digital capacity, scalability, and responsibly embracing technological innovation.

Enlarge

The Lenexa, KS, Federal Records Center is one of more than 30 NARA locations across that country that house millions of cubic feet of records. (National Archives photo by Darryl Herring)

“Our mission is both straightforward and complex: We preserve, protect, and share the historical records of the United States to promote public inquiry and strengthen democratic participation,” said Shogan. “The goals outlined in this framework will guide our efforts as we successfully navigate the complexities of the rapidly evolving digital landscape and strive to engage all Americans in meaningful ways.” 

One of the agency’s key objectives outlined in the framework is to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into archival recordkeeping and information-sharing practices to make it easier for everyone to use the records held by the National Archives. As a nonpartisan institution dedicated to making the nation's history accessible, the National Archives does not change the records within its holdings or interpret them. Making technology tools including AI and machine learning available to researchers and the public can enable more Americans to have greater success navigating the agency’s vast holdings.

NARA's early AI projects have showcased the technology's strengths by improving response times for records requests and making information from holdings more easily understood. One of the first uses of AI at NARA, in 2022, helped identify names in the 1950 Census before the records were released. Census records are a rich resource for genealogists—but it can be difficult and time-consuming to find names. These names were handwritten by census takers and can be difficult to read. NARA was able to use AI to identify names and make the records searchable within the National Archives Catalog, making it easier for the public to search and find family members in the census on the day that it was released.

While working to eliminate a backlog of National Personnel Records Center records requests from veterans and their families that had built up early in the pandemic, NARA also conducted a promising proof of concept for the use of AI-driven Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which may help the agency more efficiently manage routine operations in the future. In both projects, AI directly supported the work of archivists and made smaller pieces from large quantities of information accessible to the public more quickly.

Additional projects are exploring how AI can improve the efficiency of conducting Freedom of Information Act and other document reviews, capture metadata in microfilm digitization, safeguard personally identifiable information (PII), and perform natural-language search queries in digitized records. A pilot project is in development to test the capacity of AI to perform user-directed search queries. Known as ArchieAI, the pilot is slated to be opened to the public for testing and feedback in December 2024.

Every AI project at the National Archives depends on the expertise of multidisciplinary teams of  employees to establish use cases, document testing, set parameters, and validate results. The agency is conducting these projects within the context of a larger U.S federal framework for trustworthy use of AI, including guidance outlined in the Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI and an AI risk management framework from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Project results will be used to further develop AI governance at the National Archives, which will weigh innovation, risk management, and resources. 

AI is also being tested as an administrative business tool to help NARA employees work more efficiently in day-to-day tasks. Employees in the pilot project can access Google Gemini AI capabilities within the Google applications used at NARA for help summarizing documents, writing emails, and creating presentations and data visualization. The Gemini pilot greets employees with a message that reminds pilot users that no data will be shared outside of the National Archives environment and will not be used to train Google’s AI model.

National Archives Chief Information Officer Sheena Burrell stated, "AI technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we work at NARA. By automating routine tasks and providing us with new tools to analyze and understand our data, AI can help us to be more efficient, effective, and responsive to the needs of our customers."

NARA’s inventory of AI use cases to date are listed on its website.

Generative AI systems, such as ChatGPT, are trained on large datasets to create written, visual or audio content in response to prompts. When fed real images, some algorithms can produce fake photos and videos known as deepfakes. 

Content created with generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems are playing a role in the 2024 presidential election. While these tools can be used harmlessly, they allow bad actors to create misinformation more quickly and realistically than before, potentially increasing their influence on voters. 

Domestic and foreign adversaries can use deepfakes and other forms of generative AI to spread false information about a politician’s platform or doctor their speeches, said Thomas Scanlon, principal researcher at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute and an adjunct professor at its Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. 

“The concern with deepfakes is how believable they can be, and how problematic it is to discern them from authentic footage,” Scanlon said. 

Voters have seen more ridiculous AI-generated content — such as a photo of Donald Trump appearing to ride a lion — than an onslaught of hyper-realistic deepfakes full of falsehoods, according to the Associated Press. Still, Scanlon is concerned that voters will be exposed to more harmful generative content on or shortly before Election Day, such as videos depicting poll workers saying an open voting location is closed. 

That sort of misinformation, he said, could prevent voters from casting their ballots because there will be little time to correct the false information. Overall, AI-generated deceit could further erode voters’ trust in the country’s democratic institutions and elected officials, according to the university’s Block Center for Technology and Society, housed in the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. 

“People are just constantly being bombarded with information, and it's up to the consumer to determine: What is the value of it, but also, what is their confidence in it? And I think that's really where individuals may struggle,” said Randall Trzeciak, director of the Heinz College Master of Science in Information Security Policy & Management (MSISPM) program.

Leaps and bounds in generative AI

For years, people have spread misinformation by manipulating photos and videos with tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Scanlon said. These fakes are easier to recognize, and they’re harder for bad actors to replicate on a large scale. Generative AI systems, however, enable users to create content quickly and easily, even if they don’t have fancy computers or software.

People fall for deepfakes for a variety of reasons, faculty at Heinz College said. If the viewer is using a smartphone, they’re more likely to blame a deepfake’s poor quality on bad cell service. If a deepfake echoes a belief the viewer already has — for example, that a political candidate would make the statement depicted — the viewer is less likely to scrutinize it.

Most people don’t have time to fact-check every video they see, meaning deepfakes can sow doubt and erode trust over time, wrote Ananya Sen, an assistant professor of information technology and management at Heinz College, in a statement. He’s concerned that ballot-counting livestreams, while intended to increase transparency, could be used for deepfakes. 

Once the false information is out there, there’s little opportunity to correct it and put the genie back in the bottle. 

Unlike previous means of creating disinformation, generative AI can also be used to send tailor-made messages to online communities, said Ari Lightman, a professor of digital media and marketing at Heinz College. If one member of the community accidentally shares the content, the others may believe its message because they trust the person who shared it.

Adversaries are “looking at consumer behavioral patterns and how people interact with technology, hoping that one of them clicks on a piece of information that might cascade into a viral release of disinformation,” Lightman said.

It’s difficult to unmask the perpetrators of AI-generated misinformation. The creators can use virtual private networks and other mechanisms to hide their tracks. Countries with adversarial relationships with the U.S. are likely weaponizing this technology, Lightman said, but he’s also concerned about individuals and terrorist groups that may be operating under the radar.

What voters need to know

People should trust their intuition and attempt to verify videos they believe could be deepfakes, Scanlon said. “If you see a video that's causing you to have some doubt about its authenticity, then you should acknowledge that doubt,” he said. 

Here are a few signs that a video could be a deepfake, according to Scanlon:

You can read more in an article by Emma Folts published in the CMU web site. 

Around 1987, there was a man who had a vision for Italian genealogy.  His name was Dr. Thomas Militello, from California and eventually Nevada.  Dr. Tom had trouble trying to find genealogists who were researching the same towns as he was, and what surnames they were researching.  Keep in mind that this was the late 1980s so ancestry.com and FamilySearch did not exist as we know them today and social media was years in the future.

Dr. Tom founded a group called POINT, which stands for Pursuing Our Italian Names Together.  The objective of POINT was to get people to join the group and share information about the Italian surnames and towns they were researching.  They would receive a book with everyone’s surnames and towns, and eventually Dr. Tom created a quarterly magazine called POINTers with articles on research methods, trips to Italy, etc.

In the 1990s, former Fra Noi writer Tony Lascio founded a local chapter of POINT so Chicago-area Italian genealogists could get together and trade information.  Eventually 27 more chapters popped up around the country, including my north suburban chapter that I ran 2001-2014.

You may remember how often I wrote about the doings of the POINT group and chapters way back when I inherited the Fra Noi genealogy column after Tony passed away in 2004.

Dr. Tom was forced by failing health to cease POINT operations in 2013, and he passed away in 2019.  Most of the chapters faded off for various reasons.  So, we are back to not having a way to look for people who are researching the same Italian names and towns that we are. Or are we?

Obviously there are more internet resources than in 1987 to try to find fellow researchers.  They aren’t organized like POINT was, but you can look in a lot of places.

Naturally, social media is a great place to find kindred spirits.  I have looked for genealogy groups for several provinces and regions in Italy and found some connections that way.  Sometimes there’s a genealogy group just about a single town!  There doesn’t seem to be much about genealogy research of specific surnames, but once you join the province or town group, if someone is actively researching that surname, you’ll find ’em!

Both FamilySearch and Ancestry.com allow us to upload our family trees, and each site lets you search other peoples’ trees in the hope of finding a family match, or at least finding who submitted a tree from your town with your grandfather’s surname.  As with any genealogy site, not everyone is actively researching or answering the notes written to them.  So don’t be surprised if your question goes unanswered.  But sometimes these sites show how recently someone has been logged in, and this can help you determine whether the contact is likely to respond soon.  Once you upload your tree, other people might find you and start a family-data-exchange that could be very beneficial.

I am specifically using these sites to try to find people who might have visited Italy and worked with, or photographed, the church records from the ancestral town.  If you are already working with civil records on FamilySearch or Antenati, everyone has basically the same access to the same records.  But if you find that “player” who went to the old hometown and worked with the church records, it might be a gold mine!

And while researching this column, I discovered that the old POINTers archives were acquired by IGG, Italian Genealogy Group.  https://www.italiangen.org/pointers-archive/  You have to be a paid member of IGG to get to these, and the information may be out of date.  Find the name of a person researching your name and town in an old POINTers.  Then use social media to find that person so you can contact them, or their descendants, today.

If you have success using any of these methods, please email me at italianroots@comcast.net and put “POINT” in the subject line.  Happy hunting!

LEGO History enthusiasts have just gotten an early Christmas present! The LEGO Group (specifically the Archivists/Curators/Historians) have quietly launched a very exciting new feature on the LEGO History section of their website – a searchable database cataloguing the complete collection of Wooden Toys from The LEGO Group’s very early years!

For those who appreciate LEGO’s history and heritage, this is an exceptionally huge deal as there is now this treasure trove of official information from 1932-1959, when LEGO founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen began designing and producing wooden toys.

The database is a huge leap forward for digitising all of this official information from LEGO’s nascent years , and allows you to search by product name, product number, launch year and exit year, both in English and Danish. 

For a spot of realism, all the images in LEGO’s former catalogues were in black and white, so the images uploaded to the database have stay trued to the original look. There are still plenty of images that haven’t been uploading yet, but a message in the Introductory section states that “they will get there”. 

I’m not an authoritative LEGO Historian by any means, but I have a deep passion for this era of The LEGO Group’s history, and am slowly adding to my own personal archive of LEGO Wooden Toys, so I’ve been spending a lot of time flicking through the pages and immersing myself in the photos. 

There’s stuff I’ve never seen before like the Hare Wagon (that I’m not sure is documented anywhere else online) and I also loved seeing the wooden Castle.

Another cool thing I’ve seen that’s completely new to me is the Ball Conveyor from 1953, which looks like the ancestor of the Great Ball Contraption! 

And yes, you can also check out items like the Wooden Rifle, Peace Gun and Blunderbuss too!

This thing is just a treasure trove of early LEGO History, and will be an invaluable tool for amateur LEGO Historians and Collectors who want to learn more about LEGO’s Wooden Toys, but also as official reference material. 

Do check out the LEGO Wooden Toy archive and while you’re there, the entire LEGO History section is a fantastic resource for those who can’t quite get to Denmark and visit The LEGO House history collection, or the LEGO Idea House. 

To get the latest LEGO news and LEGO Reviews straight in your inbox, subscribe via email, or you can also follow on Google News, or socials on Facebook, Instagram (@jayong28), Twitter or subscribe to the Jay’s Brick Blog Youtube channel.

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Almost 100,000 pages of records from the Foundling Hospital, England’s first home for babies who were unable to be cared for by their parents, have today been made available online for the first time.

Almost 100,000 Pages of Records from the Foundling Hospital, England’s First Home for Babies who were unable to be cared for by their parents, have today been made available online for the first time.

The digital archive, launched by Coram, which was established as the Foundling Hospital in London in 1739, brings to life the previously untold stories of over 20,000 children who grew up at the Hospital and of their birth mothers. 

Today’s digital archive launch is the culmination of Coram’s five-year programme, Voices Through Time: The Story of Care, made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Coram has digitised 405 volumes in the archive, almost a quarter of the entire collection, spanning 1739 to 1899. Nearly 6,500 volunteers from around the world helped transcribe the digital pages to enable detailed searching of their contents.

The digital images and their transcripts are free to access online. In addition to the records about the children, the digital archive contains intimate and moving petition letters from mothers seeking the admission of their children into the Foundling Hospital, and books containing tokens left as a symbol of the connection between mother and child.

The digital archive provides a rich historical resource for research into the lives of working-class women across England, and the history of education, childcare, employment, medicine, disability, textiles, and more. Family historians will find details of children, parents, Hospital staff, and apprenticeship masters and mistresses.

Dr Carol Homden, CEO of Coram, said: “Coram’s digital Foundling Hospital archive provides a new opportunity to research this fascinating chapter in our history as the first and longest continuing children’s charity and help us better to understand the evolution and continuing needs of children’s social care.

“Through these extensive and detailed records, we are able to discover the untold stories of thousands of children who were raised at the Foundling Hospital in the 18th and 19th centuries, and hear rare first-person accounts of the issues faced by women who had no source of support in the harsh environment before the welfare state. It enables us to learn more about the evolution of social attitudes to children’s rights and welfare and the role Coram has and continues to play in pioneering good practice and developing children’s services since 1739.

“We are enormously grateful to the thousands of volunteers who participated in the programme, care-experienced young people who have shared their own stories, and to The National Lottery Heritage Fund in enabling us to preserve this precious archive for future generations.”

Alongside the digital archive launch, Coram has today unveiled Echoes of Care: The living history of Coram and the Foundling Hospital, a new immersive art installation exploring the past and present of the care system. The exhibition at Coram Campus in Bloomsbury, London, is the creative culmination of the Voices Through Time programme. It integrates words, images and audio produced by care-experienced young people across five years of creative projects, with details of the lives of Foundlings and their mothers.

Developed in collaboration with care-experienced young people, the installation explores the role of the Foundling Hospital, highlights the unexpected relationships young people forge on their journeys, and challenges the assumptions made about young people in care by illuminating eternal themes and calling for change for the future.

There will also be an evening of discussion and celebration on 24 October, as part Bloomsbury Festival programme, to mark the exhibition and archive launch. Book free tickets at coramstory.org.uk/explore/content/event/echoes-of-care-the-celebration/.

To access the Foundling Hospital Archive online, please visit coramstory.org.uk/the-foundling-hospital-archive/.

Mount Gilead Public Library (MGPL) Board President Tracy Smith is pleased and excited to introduce Will Staub as the new director of the library.

Staub comes to Mount Gilead from Clarion, Pennsylvania. He obtained his Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in library science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, with a minor in speech pathology.

Guests are likely to find Staub near the circulation desk answering questions or welcoming and chatting with a library patron. He wants to get to know people and sees the library as a place where people don’t just check out books but come together to meet with friends or gather for a program.

“The library is a central pillar of the community,” said Staub. “When people have questions about technology, the library is at the forefront.”

Research and visits to the library were a “way of life” in his home. His father was a professor at Clarion University and his mother an elementary teacher who worked with the Literary Council and was involved with projects with the children’s library department in Clarion.

His internship was with the college library science department at Clarion University, where he was responsible for the university’s ALA accreditation project. He also interned at Franklin, Pennsylvania’s public library.

He said Mount Gilead’s library feels very much like the libraries in Clarion and Franklin, where he has spent a lot of time. While their children’s programs are similar to those here, he said the adult reading programs and book clubs in Mount Gilead are something those other libraries didn’t have, and he’s happy to see them here.

Staub came to the library at the beginning of September, and he’s in the process of looking at the library’s policies and needs. He’s looking into possible programs for teens and homeschool students. He took classes in researching genealogy and was impressed with all the resources for studying genealogy in the MGPL annex.

Staub said he sees a librarian as a kind of “jack of all trades” who has knowledge and is familiar with many areas of interest and study for patrons. One of his favorite things is working with people who have questions.

“When you learn about patrons’ interests, you learn about them as well as learning about a subject yourself,” said Staub. “That’s something about libraries. You learn something new every day.”

Outside the library, he enjoys hiking, going to the gym, exploring new areas, cooking and reading.

Smith said Staub was chosen by the library board from a field of six or seven applicants. He said Staub talks with people easily, and the staff was also impressed as he chatted with them while he waited for his interview with the board.

“He impressed all the library board members with his positive attitude and eagerness to get to work,” said Smith. “We are very pleased he is part of our team.”

For more about the library’s programs and resources, the website is mglibrary.org.

Located at 41 E. High St., the library is open Monday through Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Lancaster Virginia Historical Society (LVHS) on Saturday, October 12, dedicated the Dunton Library for Genealogy and History in honor of Ammon G. Dunton Jr. (left) for his longtime support of community history preservation and education efforts and his many contributions to LVHS as a board member, past president and chairman of the library capital campaign. The new facility on the LVHS campus in Lancaster provides improved space for library users and for the society’s collection of more than 8,000 books, research files, county record indexes, family charts, oral histories and other reference materials, reported executive director Karen Hart (right). Within the facility, the Genealogy Wing was dedicated in memory of Elizabeth Combs Peirce and the History Wing was dedicated in memory of Marion and Lorena Dobyns Conner and Edward Longworth and Mary Latane Tadlock, thanks to generous gifts from their families

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s international arm on Wednesday launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence-powered translation tool that, it says, is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.

That’s based on an assessment of Alibaba International’s new model, Marco MT, by translation benchmark framework Flores, the Chinese company said.

Alibaba’s fast-growing international unit released the AI translation product as an update to one unveiled about a year ago, which it says already has 500,000 merchant users. Sellers based in one country can use the translation tool to create product pages in the language of the target market.

The new version is based only on large language models, allowing it to draw on contextual clues such as culture or industry-specific terms, Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group and head of the business’ artificial intelligence initiative, told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.

“The idea is that we want this AI tool to help the bottom line of the merchants, because if the merchants are doing well, the platform will be doing well,” he said.

Large language models power artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can also translate text. The models, trained on massive amounts of data, can generate humanlike responses to user prompts.

Alibaba’s translation tool is based on its own model called Qwen. The product supports 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

Zhang declined to share how much the updated version would cost. He said it was included in some service bundles for merchants wanting simple exposure to overseas users.

His thinking is that contextual translation makes it much more likely that consumers decide to buy. He shared an example in which a colloquial Chinese description for a slipper would have turned off English-speaking consumers if it was only translated literally, without getting at the implied meaning.

“The updated translation engine is going to make Double 11 a better experience for consumers because of more authentic expression,” Zhang said, in reference to the Alibaba-led shopping festival that centers on Nov. 11 each year.

Alibaba’s international business includes platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada, which primarily targets Southeast Asia. The international unit reported sales growth of 32% to $4.03 billion in the quarter ended June from a year ago.

That’s in contrast to a 1% year-on-year drop in sales to $15.6 billion for Alibaba’s main Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business, which has focused on China.

The Taobao app is also popular with consumers in Singapore. In September, the app launched an AI-powered English version for users in the country.

Nomura analysts expect that Alibaba’s international revenue slowed slightly to 29% year-on-year growth in the quarter ended September, while operating losses narrowed, according to an Oct. 10 report. Alibaba has yet to announce when it will release quarterly earnings.

From an article by Emily Bloch published in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

23andMe is facing scrutiny, with some experts calling it the beginning of the end for the popular genetic testing company. It’s been a rocky year for the saliva-based DNA testing brand, including a high-profile data breach and resignations from the company’s board last month.

Users are wondering what’s next — and if their personal data (including their literal DNA) are safe.

Here’s what we know.

What happened with the 23andMe data breach?

In October 2023, 23andMe launched an investigation after a “threat actor” claimed to have obtainedmillions of users’ personal data.

By December, the company confirmed through a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that a hacker directly accessed 0.1% of its users’ accounts, or about 14,000 profiles. Still, because of the networks individual users can build, connecting their information to other possible relatives, the hacker was able to view the information of millions of users.

A spokesperson for the company told news outlets at the time that 6.9 million people had been affected: about 5.5 million customers who had opted into 23andMe’s “DNA Relatives” feature and 1.4 million users whose family tree information was accessed.

Information accessed included:

1. Display name, profile picture, and birth year.

2. How recently they had logged into their account.

3. Their relationship status.

4. Their self-reported location by city and zip code.

5. Predicted relationships with others.

6. DNA percentages users share with their “DNA Relatives.”

The company added that an additional 1.4 million customers who used the “DNA Relatives” feature had their “Family Tree” profiles accessed, which includes a limited subset of profile data.

23andMe said at the time that the hacker activity was contained and required existing users to reset their passwords and enable multifactor authentication for logging in.

The issue resulted in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in January and settled this month.

Who is eligible for 23andMe settlement money?

As part of the settlement, 23andMe admitted to no wrongdoing and agreed to pay $30 million to affected parties, including up to $10,000 to people who experienced significant losses, like identity theft, as a result of the breach.

The settlement will affect the millions of users whose data were targeted in the leak. In order to qualify, an affected 23andMe user must have been a U.S. resident on Aug. 11, 2023.

As of publication time, there’s no way to submit a claim to be a part of the settlement. Affected users will need to visit the 23andMe settlement website and enter their information when it becomes available, according to Forbes. The site will offer an online claim form and a downloadable PDF version if you prefer to submit by mail.

Why did the entire board resign?

The entire 23andMe board of independent directors resigned last month, a rare move in the business world that experts say foreshadows an unstable situation.

The seven directors said in a letter addressed to 23andMe cofounder and CEO Anne Wojcicki that they had not received a plan regarding the company’s future that inspired confidence.

Wojcicki previously expressed a desire to take 23andMe private, which sparked concern among the board members.

“While we continue to wholeheartedly support the Company’s mission and believe deeply in the value of the personalized health and wellness offering that you have articulated, it is also clear that we differ on the strategic direction for the Company going forward,” the letter said. “Because of that difference and because of your concentrated voting power, we believe that it is in the best interests of the Company’s shareholders that we resign from the Board rather than have a protracted and distracting difference of view with you as to the direction of the Company.”

Wojcicki responded to the resignations through an employee memo in which she expressed her “surprise” and disappointment in the directors’ decision. She added that she still believed taking 23andMe private was the best option, but clarified that she isn’t considering third-party takeover proposals.

Wojcicki said she would identify new directors to join the board. She remains the only board member listed on the company’s website.

Is 23andMe safe to use now?

Experts say 23andMe users’ data are no more at risk today than it has ever been, but added that customers should review the company’s privacy policies and think about which data are available and where they want them shared.

Customers can consent to 23andMe sharing their anonymized genetic information with third-party companies for various reasons, including medical research. Experts told CBS that this type of data sharing can come with vulnerabilities, but that they are not unique to 23andMe.

About 80% of 23andMe customers consent to participate in the company’s research program, which has generated nearly 300 peer-reviewed publications regarding genetic insights into disease, the company said.

Still, users became more concerned when Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, raised flags about the company in a social media post.

“If you have a 23andme account, today is a good day to log in and request the deletion of your data,” she wrote on X.

How can I delete my data from 23andMe?

To delete an account, users can log in and go to the Account Settings tab. Users will go through the prompts and identity verification before getting an email asking for confirmation to delete the account. Deleting an account is irreversible.

However, deleting an account doesn’t necessarily delete all of a user’s personal information associated with it. The company plans to hang on to some genetic information and personal details including sex, birthday, email address, and details about the account’s deletion request, MIT Technology Review reported.

For users who opted into sharing anonymized genetic data with third parties, there is no way to delete the information or retract what has already been shared.

Are there alternatives to 23andMe?

All online DNA testing services come with some privacy concerns, but legal guidelines to regulate personal data serve as a safeguard. For some users looking for answers to health mysteries or to find missing links to their family trees, the trade-off is worth it.

Because of 23andMe’s uncertain future, review sites like the New York Times’ Wirecutter have stopped recommending the service in its DNA testing roundups.

The review site recommends AncestryDNA and FamilyTreeDNA as alternatives.