It’s a myth in American culture that every family has a coat of arms or a “family crest” or at least one exists for every last name. However, coats of arms are granted to individuals, not surnames.

In other words, if you don't have documentation that says thay you (and you alone) are authorized to display a “family crest,” you are not authorized to show it.

Details can be found in a YouTube video produced by Genealogy Magazine, entitled "Episode 10: The Family Crest," available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du4SLAImGGs.

Host of PBS’ “Genealogy Roadshow” and genealogist Kenyatta Berry will appear as the keynote speaker of a conference hosted by the Historical Society of Washington County on Saturday on exploring the family history of African Americans, particularly before the Civil War.

ABINGDON, Va. — A nationally recognized genealogist and host of the PBS program “Genealogy Roadshow” will be the keynote speaker for a virtual conference on African Americans in Washington County, Virginia.

Hosted by the Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia, the virtual conference is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 19. Participants are welcome to come and go during the online conference to suit their own schedules and interests.

An attorney, published author and lecturer, Kenyatta Berry has worked for more than 20 years in genealogical research, focusing primarily on African American ancestry. She has been a contributor to The 1619 Project published by The New York Times and was the honorary chair for Preservation Week in 2019.

During the conference, Dr. Jerry Jones will also discuss his book “Go and Come Again: The Story of Life as an African American in Southwest Virginia.” In addition, Dr. Jim Hagy will give a presentation on the history of Washington County.

There will also be storytelling, links and resources provided during the conference.

You can read more about this conference in an article by Carolyn R. Wilson published in the Washington County News web site at: https://bit.ly/35qJSjg.

A federal judge dismissed with prejudice claims that Ancestry.com used Californians’ yearbook pictures without permission.

The dismissal comes after a class of Californians sued the genealogy website in November 2020 claiming the site used their old yearbook photos and other information in ads without their permission. The class claimed the company maintains a massive database of yearbook pictures spanning from 1900 through 1999, but that consumers never got a say if they wanted to be included in Ancestry’s databanks.

“Ancestry did not ask the consent of the people whose personal information and photographs it profits from,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint. “Nor has it offered them any compensation for the ongoing use of their names, photographs, likenesses, and identities.”

On top of amassing the yearbook collection without people’s permission, the class said, Ancestry.com then used that database to solicit more users. The class said the company would use photos and other personal information in email and popup ads to potential customers to entice them to subscribe to its genealogy services, and even used photos of gravesites of deceased relatives to pull in more users.

The plaintiffs said this conduct was illegal and violated their privacy rights. They asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler to stop Ancestry from using the database without additional safeguards for users’ personal information.

But after dismissing the suit this past March and sending the class back to the drawing board with their complaint, Beeler dismissed the suit against Ancestry once more Tuesday — and this time for good.

Further details are available in an article by Carson Mccullough published in the Courthouse News web site at: https://www.courthousenews.com/ancestry-com-ducks-lawsuit-over-yearbook-database/.

This article is off-topic. That is, it does not concern anything to do with genealogy, DNA, or related topics normally found in this newsletter. However, I suspect that thousands of newsletter readers will be interested in this article for many different purposes:

If you have a Microsoft account (It’s easy and free to create one), you can access any of the popular Office programs for free. Your account grants you free access to Word, Calendar, PowerPoint, OneNote, Excel, and others. You can sign up here.

You can read the full article at: https://www.maketecheasier.com/use-microsoft-office-for-free/. 

Want to host an online party, but not sure how to use Zoom? Check out this easy to follow guide to get you started.

How to Host a Zoom Party and Connect With Your Loved Ones

Here's how to throw a Zoom party and play the host for an online celebration.

We are living in an era of online existence. In recent years, our use of digital technology has increased along with migrating our professional and personal lives online.

Thanks to huge developments in technology and online services, it is easier than ever to connect with loved ones for big life events, such as weddings, birthdays, and other celebrations remotely. This is where you can use a video calling service such as Zoom to connect to loved ones by hosting a virtual party.

What Is Zoom?

Zoom party on a laptop

Zoom is a video conferencing app that allows users to make phone calls, video calls and host work meetings on their laptops, desktop computers, and cellphones, using an internet connection.

Why Is It Good for Hosting Online Parties?

You can learn how to do it in an article by Charlotte Osborn and published in the Make Use Of.com web site at: https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-host-a-zoom-party/.

Ashlee Fujawa and Anna Eaglin hope people turn their interest in true crime stories into advocacy to help police and families find answers.

Two Indianapolis women have joined a team to help push information about cold cases involving missing and murdered victims.

Ashlee Fujawa and Anna Eaglin are co-founders of the interactive website "UNCOVERED." The pair is inviting the public to be part of an online version called Uncovered.com.

"We have always been interested in the genre of unsolved crimes, true crimes," said Fujawa.

The two friends, who met in college, have now made this their new mission in life. They are part of the team running a new website to help put some heat on cold cases.

"The more we got to talking about it, bringing it all credible information, verified information but then also pursuing it in a way people can consume better," Fujawa said.

Both women invite the public to join them at Uncovered.com, where families can also submit cases they would like posted on the website.

The full article by Steve Jefferson and published in the WTHR web site may be found at: https://bit.ly/3iKHImf.

The following is a message posted to the IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring mailing list and is republished here with permission:

The IAJGS Records Access Alert previously wrote about the potential of the Seattle Archives being transferred to California and Kansas City, at least a thousand of miles away from the residents whose records are located there: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. This closure/relocation was stopped by the Biden Administration—at least for now.

David Ferriero, the US Archivist has written a blog post about the Seattle Archives on ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Stillaguamish, Duwamish and Suquamish natives.

To read more about this land see:

https://aotus.blogs.archives.gov/2021/06/11/the-importance-of-acknowledging-our-history-the-national-archives-in-seattle/

To read the previous postings about the potential closing of the Washington NARA Office, go to the archives of the IAJGS Records Access Alert at: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/private/records-access-alerts/. You must be registered to access the archives. To register go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/listinfo/records-access-alerts and follow the instructions to enter your email address, full name and which genealogical organization with whom you are affiliated. You will receive an email response that you have to reply to or the subscription will not be finalized.

Jan Meisels Allen Chairperson,
IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

I enjoyed this article and felt perhaps others might want to read the article by. Libby Copeland and published in the Literary Hub web site:

America has become a nation obsessed with genealogy. The mere existence of so many genealogical materials digitized, indexed, and searchable online, and our communal drive to find them, comes from a suite of personal and cultural motivations, as well as a complex history around the search for lineage. In his 2013 history of American genealogy, Family Trees, historian François Weil traces how the American impulse toward genealogy has often been in tension with itself. In the early days of the new American republic, Weil writes, the idea of establishing one’s family line was associated with the British aristocracy’s obsession with social rank, and viewed with suspicion by a society that saw itself as more egalitarian and forward-looking. Why would one be driven to document one’s ancestors, if not to prove some connection to better birth and station?

But over the course of the 19th century, that shifted, enough that by 1879 the New York Times could declare that “we are becoming the most genealogical nation on the face of the earth.” Weil writes that American genealogy transformed into a respectable middle-class endeavor as Americans began to justify and sanctify the activity within the context of family, which came to be viewed as an almost holy thing. The family “was viewed as a refuge from the outside world in an ever-changing environment,” Weil writes, and genealogy became a mechanism for remembering and solidifying that unit.

Besides, some Americans came to see the process of learning one’s family history as a moral endeavor—a person could learn much from what her ancestors had done right or wrong. Reframed within the context of republicanism and democratic ideals, genealogical inquiry could become the means to celebrate not just the richest and most titled of forebears, but even the humbler sort. One 1850s Pennsylvanian went so far as to boast of his family’s “mediocrity.” The practice of keeping one’s family history in a household bible had long been popular; now, middle-class New England families augmented those bibles with wall hangings of family registers and embroidered family trees.

You can read the full article at: https://lithub.com/we-are-we-all-so-obsessed-with-genealogy.

My thanks to newsletter reader Pierre Clouthier for telling me about this online article.

Here is information about a historic family:

Devoney Looser, Regents and Foundation Professor of English at Arizona State University, has uncovered new information on the family of English novelist Jane Austen that establishes the family’s direct ties to the anti-slavery movement.

With an increased worldwide awareness surrounding the history of race and racial justice, the subject of Austen and her family connections to colonialism and slavery recently came under renewed scrutiny. Through research she conducted over the past year, Looser discovered several new facts that deepen and further complicate the previous understanding of the Austen family’s relationship to the institution of slavery. The information was published as the cover feature in the May 21 issue of the Times Literary Supplement.Devoney Looser / ASU photoDevoney Looser, Regents and Foundation Professor of English at Arizona State University, has uncovered new information on the family of English novelist Jane Austen that establishes the family’s direct ties to the anti-slavery movement.

“Jane Austen and her family have rightly come under scrutiny,” Looser said. “But a reductive story was forming that her family — and, by association, she — was pro-slavery. What my work adds is that her immediate family might also be described as anti-slavery. So the best answer to the oversimplified question, ‘Was the Austen family pro-slavery or anti-slavery?’ — is both.”

You can read the full article by Emily Balli published in the Arizona State University web site at: https://bit.ly/2RURTd0.

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

This week FamilySearch added 4M new indexed records from Find A Grave Index, plus Argentina Cemetery Records 1882–2019, England Middlesex Parish Registers 1539–1988, the Netherlands Archival Indexes Vital Records 1600–2000, and thousands more Catholic Church records for Peru (Huaraz) 1641–2016 and Venezuela 1577–1995.

US collections added Arizona Divorce Records 1877–1937, Georgia Tax Digests 1787–1900, Louisiana Orleans Parish Cemetery Records 1805–1944, and Missouri Civil Marriages 1820–1874.

Search these new records and images by clicking on the collection links below, or go to FamilySearch to search over 8 billion free names and record images.

The full list of newly-added. records is very long, too long to publish here. However, you can find the full list at: https://media.familysearch.org/new-free-historical-records-on-familysearch-week-of-14-june-2020/. 

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 5,000 family history centers in 129 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.