Willie Hudspeth drove past the burial site the first time he went looking for the bodies.

The longtime activist was trekking down a country road in search of a freedman’s cemetery in Pilot Point, a small town north of Denton. But over time, nature had run its course. Grass and weeds blanketed some 400 graves of St. John’s Cemetery, the final resting place for a community composed of freed slaves. Before a fence was installed, cattle would occasionally roam through the wooded grounds.

But on that day several years back, Hudspeth encountered a caretaker on the gravel road. Upon spotting his vehicle, she assumed he may be yet another high-school kid out to steal headstones. She held a .45 pistol behind the door of her truck.

Hudspeth laughs when he tells the story, explaining how the caretaker soon relaxed and showed him the way to St. John’s. Looking back on it now, the 75-year-old civil rights activist and local NAACP president is amazed he was able to find the overgrown site, largely forgotten. Ask him, and he’ll say it’s divine providence.

“I don’t know how in the world we found this. I don’t know how we found her, I don’t know how we found the road to turn on. Nothing,” he said. “But that’s how we actually found it, and then I got her permission to come out and do some work out here whenever I could.”

You can read the rest of the story in an article by Simone Carter published in the Dallas (Texas) Observer at https://bit.ly/3wHmLMs.

From the Digital North Carolina Blog:

Thanks to a nomination by our partner, Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center, 1,357 issues of Black Mountain News from 1951 to 1976 are now available to view on our website. Black Mountain News is published in Black Mountain which is located in western North Carolina in Buncombe County near Asheville. This batch of Black Mountain News issues builds on our current collection of the paper which originally spanned only from the paper’s first issue on September 6, 1945 to 1950. 

Dancing, Singing, and Clogging This Friday, March 23, 1972

Long Description

Articles published in Black Mountain News center the stories, announcements, and advertisements of the Black Mountain community along with other surrounding communities such as Swannanoa. These articles provide readers with more information on Black Mountain’s community and history during the period. Featured articles include an ad for a 1955 Tupperware party, information on the 1972 Owen High School Folk Festival, and a call for donations from the Buncombe County community for the preservation of the U.S.S. North Carolina (which currently resides in Wilmington).

Digitization of these issues was funded in part by the North Caroliniana Society. 

To learn more about the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from around North Carolina, please visit here.

During WWII, Uzbekistan became a sanctuary for refugees fleeing from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc. Jewish refugees established a thriving cultural life there, including Yiddish theater.

Now an article by Mordechai Haimovitz published in the Jerusalem Post describes Uzbekistan's policy of researching and documenting the history of its Jewish community, which has existed in the central Asian nation since the region was crushed by the hooves of Genghis Khan’s horses. This also includes hundreds of thousands of Jews who managed to escape the chains of Germany’s Panzer tanks.

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan generously opened its doors to Jews and many others fleeing the Germans. Now the republic is welcoming the public to step into the official Uzbek archives and view the history of its Jewish community for themselves.

The Central State Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan has been instructed to make information about the lives of Jews during World War II and before available to the public. The archive is also currently in the process of signing an agreement with the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, and soon afterward also with Yad Vashem.

You can read the full story at: https://bit.ly/3yYWuuI.

An article by Diane Xue of the University of Washington and Hanley Kingston of the University of Washington gives you still another reason to be thankful for your ancestors and especially for their ethnic origins.

They wrote:

"We are two researchers who have been working to find genes that affect people’s risk for various diseases. Our team recently found a genetic region that appears to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease. To do this, we used a method called admixture mapping that uses data from people with mixed ancestry to find genetic causes of disease.

"Genome-wide association studies

"In 2005, researchers first used a groundbreaking method called a genome–wide association study. Such studies comb through huge datasets of genomes and medical histories to see if people with certain diseases tend to share the same version of DNA – called a genetic marker – at specific spots.

(Some text omitted for brevity.)

"Disentangling race, ancestry and health disparities can be a challenge in genome-wide association studies. Admixture mapping, on the other hand, is able to make better use of even relatively small datasets of underrepresented people. This method specifically gets its power from studying people who have mixed ancestry."

The full article is lengthy but I found it fascinating. You can check it out yourself at: https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Mixed-ancestry-genetic-research-shows-a-bit-of-16313697.php.

Handing an ancient document can easily induce damage into a document that is irreplaceable. Even simply sneezing on a priceless document can induce damage. One archivist recently told of an experience of a friend of hers who had once sneezed on an illuminated manuscript. As the friend instinctively began wiping, the ink smudged. The more they wiped, the worse it got; the scene was practically the same nightmare that had been depicted on the old British TV show Mr. Bean.

What needs to be done to preserve historic old documents.? An article by Olivia Campbell and published in The Atlantic discusses the need to be extra cautious when handling historic documents. You can find the article at: https://bit.ly/3hBnRVS.

My thanks to newsletter reader David Brown for telling me about this article.

Our ancestors took great pains to "decorate" a home for a funeral. After all, most funerals were held at home.

Upper and middle-class families tried to memorialize their loved one’s passing like Queen Victoria herself. And that wasn’t easy. When Queen Victoria’s husband passed away, she remained in mourning for the rest of her life. For forty years she dressed in black and kept mementos in the royal castles as reminders of his death.

In truth, few could afford to mourn as fully as Victoria did, but even working-class families observed modest versions of the same traditions. Some hung black wreaths and others served funeral biscuits. They made do with what they had.

Photography was still rare in those days. A photographer was often called after a death. Deceased children were often posed in the arms of their parents. Sadly, this was sometimes the only family photo they owned.

You can read a lot more about Victorian-era funeral customs in an article by Cathy Wallace published in the BillionGraves' blog at: https://blog.billiongraves.com/preparing-the-victorian-home-for-a-funeral/.

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

The following is a notice sent to the IAJGS (International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies) Public Records Access Monitoring Committee's mailing list and is republished here with permission:

The National Archives has made several data sets relating to World War II available as open data.  Go to: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/over-het-na/datalab-nationaal-archief/open-data-sets

The open datasets for the archive inventories can be downloaded, via the link to the archive inventory, as PDF and XML. For the indexes, the open datasets can be downloaded, via the link to the index, as a zip file containing a csv and xml file.  The text on the relevant web pages can also be used as open data.

Although these are open datasets, they may contain personal data of living persons. In chapter 5 of the privacy regulations of the National Archives you can read whether and how you may continue to use this data.  https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/privacyreglement-nationaal-archief

The open datasets currently made available by the National Archives largely consist of archive inventories and indexes. An archive inventory always consists of a description of the archive and a description of the archive components. An index is a list with data about, for example, people, place names or keywords from the archive components.

More than 400,000 open data photos from the National Archives are available through Wikimedia Commons. About 9000 photos have 'World War II' in the description.

To view and use the National Archives World War ll photos from Wikimedia Commons see:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=tweede+wereldoorlog+nationaal+archief&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

Thank you to Yvette Hoitink, CG^®    Dutch Genealogy Blog for informing us about this data set.

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

Great news! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library reopened last Tuesday.

The genealogical research facility had been closed since March of 2020 due to the pandemic. The library was also updated during the closure.

Now, as guests walk inside, they’ll notice newly-organized research materials, upgraded technology, desktop book scanners, more room for interactive experiences, and more than 300 staff and volunteers ready to help.

 It now has fewer computers than it did before, but more than half are Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant.

Genealogists generally spend their spare time researching and thinking about live in the past. However, an article by Victoria Song and published in the Gizmodo web site got me thinking about the opposite: life in the future.

The article states (in part):

Owning things used to be simple. You went to the store. You paid money for something, whether it be a TV, clothes, books, toys, or electronics. You took your item home, and once you paid it off, that thing belonged to you. It was yours. You could do whatever you wanted with it. That’s not how it is today, and by 2030, technology will have advanced to the point that even the idea of owning objects might be obsolete.

Many a think piece has been written about how Millennials aren’t as interested in owning things as their predecessors. After decades of Boomers keeping up with the Joneses, Millennials were supposedly “more about the experience” than physical goods. There’s a kernel of truth in that, but the shift to services was telegraphed a long time ago.

Back in 2016, the World Economic Forum released a Facebook video with eight predictions it had for the world in 2030. “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy,” it says. “Whatever you want, you’ll rent. And it’ll be delivered by drone.”

“Everything you considered a product, has now become a service,” reads another WEF essay published on Forbes. “We have access to transportation, accommodation, food, and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.”

The WEF’s framing is overly optimistic, but this is the future we’re rapidly hurtling toward. I rent my apartment, and therefore, all the home appliances in it. If I wanted, I could rent all my furniture and clothes. Sure, I have my own computer and phone, but there are plenty of people who use company-issued gadgets. And if I didn’t want company-issued items, I could always rely on electronics rentals. I like cooking and grocery shopping, but I could just sign up for a meal kit service and call it a day. I wouldn’t even need appliances like toasters, rice cookers, blenders, air fryers, or anything beyond a microwave. To get around, there are Citi Bikes, Uber, and Zipcar.

You might be wondering—what’s the problem here? Consumerism is exhausting, and as far as housing goes, ownership isn’t the golden ideal it’s cracked up to be. In some ways, not owning things is easier. You have fewer commitments, less responsibility, and the freedom to bail whenever you want. There are upsides to owning less. There’s also a big problem.

You can read the entire thought-provoking article at https://gizmodo.com/in-2030-you-wont-own-any-gadgets-1847176540.