The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Canada, Military Honours and Awards Index 

This new set from Library and Archives Canada contains over 113,000 transcriptions, taken from a variety of medal award collections. For around 28,000 of them you’ll also find an original image. You’ll typically discover a name, regiment, rank, medal type, and the date it was awarded. The collection spans over 150 years, from 1812 to 1969. 

Canada, Courts Martial of the First World War Index 

Also new this week is an index of court martial records, recounting members of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces who were accused of military and civilian offences. You’ll find some detail of a person’s offence in these 11,000 records, plus their name, service number, rank, regiment and unit, and the date of the event. Some of the transcripts also contain further remarks to shed more light on each case.   

Newspapers 

Did your ancestors make the news? Two new titles, updates to a further 16, and over 218,000 new pagesmake up this week’s newspaper release.  

New titles: 

·         Kidderminster Shuttle, 1889 

·         Scotland on Sunday, 1988-2002 

Updated titles: 

·         Atherstone News and Herald, 1997-1998 

·         Carrick Times and East Antrim Times, 1994 

·         Coleshill Chronicle, 1991-1992, 1997-1998 

·         Crowthorne Times, 1987 

·         Croydon Post, 1997-1998 

·         Edinburgh Evening News, 1982 

·         Football Post (Nottingham), 1999 

·         Fulham Chronicle, 1990 

·         Gloucestershire Echo, 1986-1989 

·         Londonderry Sentinel, 1989, 1992-1994 

·         Lurgan Mail, 1990 

·         Peterborough Herald & Post, 1996 

·         Portadown Times, 1982-1997 

·         Protestant Vanguard, 1933-1934 

·         Skelmersdale Advertiser, 1987 

·         Western Evening Herald, 1999 

Have you made a surprising family history discovery? Whatever you've uncovered about your past, Findmypast would love to hear about it. You can now get in touch using this handy form. 

The following press release was written by the folks at the Library of Congress:

We hope you can join us on December 7th at 3 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time), via Zoom, for our Human Rights Day celebration. Please register here.

Dr. Sarah Cooper will provide this year’s lecture on scientific literacy and the law. Science helps the law to understand the world in which legal policy, including human rights standards like the right to a fair and public trial, must operate. Yet, it is widely recognizedthat law and science approach the world in different ways: law must provide finality and stability, whereas science is encouraged to embrace new ideas so that we can better understand the natural world. The criminal justice system’s use of forensic science shows how these differences can have consequences: law can misuse science, be skeptical about change, and construe what is rational in a narrow way.

Moreover, these issues can be exacerbated by lawyers having, generally, limited science education and training options. Lawyers, though, make key calls about scientific evidence at all stages of its journey through the criminal justice system — its selection, how it is presented and challenged, and how it will inform case strategy. Moreover, lawyers become judges, who then make other key calls, for instance about what precedent to follow or shape regarding admissibility, the boundaries of direct and cross-examination, and the tools lawyers can use in both pursuits. As such, lawyers need science literacy, but how much do they value it? To what extent do the structures that lawyers operate within support the development of science literacy? The National Academy of Sciences’ recommends that conceptions of science literacy within justice systems be expanded. Drawing on intersections between criminal justice, forensics, and wrongful convictions to illustrate, this lecture will present ideas for how we can work towards answering these questions and, in doing so, build a stronger justice system for all.

Dr. Sarah Cooper. Photo courtesy of Dr. Sarah Cooper.

Dr. Sarah Cooper is a professor of Interdisciplinary Criminal Justice at Birmingham City University’s College of Law, Social and Criminal Justice in the United Kingdom, where she serves as chair of the Faculty for the Business, Law and Social Sciences’ Research Degrees and Environment Committee, and site director for the Midlands4Cities Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership. Her research, which focuses on challenges that can arise when legal systems and agents interact with science, has been cited widely by scholars, judges, lawyers, and in treatises. Her current projects focus on juror decision-making and expert evidence, lawyers and science literacy, and compassionate release from prison procedures. She supervises a range of doctoral research projects, including investigations into neuroscience and juvenile justice; legal versus scientific causation; technology and smart cities; judicial referencing of agency science; and legal challenges relating to medical diagnoses. She has received several funding awards, including from the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy, and has held visiting scholar positions at the Arizona Justice Project, Amicus, Arizona State University, Pace University, and the Law Library of Congress.

Archaeologists at Cambridge University have reconstructed the “biographies” of hundreds of the city’s ordinary medieval residents by examining their skeletons in detail, using a wealth of scientific data to fill out the life stories of poor or disadvantaged people whose names were never recorded.

By examining the bones of more than 400 adults and children who were buried in the grounds of a medieval hospital between AD1200 and 1500, the researchers have built up a detailed picture of the lives, health and even appearance of those who lived and died in Cambridge in the period.

They also gained clues to how the charitable institution operated its medieval “benefits system” and decided who was worthy of help in what must have been an overwhelming “sea of need”.

The people buried in the hospital, they discovered, didn’t come from one social class but included orphan children, university scholars and a category of people they call the “shame-faced poor” – people who had previously lived in relative prosperity but had fallen on harder times, and who were deemed particularly worthy of charity.

The site of the hospital of St John the Evangelist was excavated in 2010, uncovering hundreds of unidentified graves. For the new study, experts in DNA and isotope analysis, human skeletal variation and a range of other disciplines examined up to 50 individual characteristics of each skeleton, to build what they believe is one of the richest such datasets ever compiled for medieval England.

You can read more in an article by Esther Addley published in TheGuardian website at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/01/archaeologists-life-stories-medieval-cambridge. 

I found an interesting story by Tom Teicholz and published in the Forbes web site:

Given current events, Jewish identity and Jewish history are very much existential issues occurring in real time.

However, documentary films such as Fioretta, directed by Israeli-American Matthew Mishory about Randol Schoenberg (known familiarly as Randy) and his 18-year-old son Joey’s travels to uncover their family history remind us of the perseverance and the flourishing of Jewish life before and after periods of destruction and upheaval.

If the name Schoenberg sounds familiar – there is good reason. Randy’s grandfather (Joey’s great-grandfather) was the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg who came to Los Angeles following the Nazi takeover of Germany.

Randy himself, a graduate of Princeton and USC Law School, achieved no small measure of fame himself as the attorney who won the “Woman in Gold” Klimt painting Holocaust restitution case, which was the basis for the movie of that name starring Ryan Reynolds as Randy and Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann, the rightful owner of the painting.

Randy is also well known in his native Los Angeles for his philanthropy and for having served as the executive director of Holocaust Museum Los Angeles. He is also a curator for the Jewish genealogy website Geni.com, where he focuses on the family trees of Holocaust survivors and their families.

As is evident, as the documentary opens, Randy is genealogy obsessed. Joey, not so much. However, together they embark on a journey that takes them to Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Italy in search of their ancestors.

No ordinary journey, no ordinary adventurers makes for no ordinary documentary – it is poignant, and at moments funny, and always personal and intimate. We meet the people they encounter on their journey, related or not, genealogy obsessed as Randy (or not).

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/59efcs2x.

Today is the first day of the month. That is a good time to back up your genealogy files. Then test your backups!

Your backups aren't worth much unless you make a quick test by restoring a small file or two after the backup is completed.

Actually, you can make backups at any time. However, it is easier and safer if you have a specific schedule. The first day of the month is easy to remember, so I would suggest you back up your genealogy files at least on the first day of every month, if not more often. (My computers automatically make off-site backups of all new files every few minutes.)

Given the events of the past few months with genealogy websites laying off employees and cutting back on services, you now need backup copies of everything more than ever. What happens if the company that holds your online data either goes off line or simply deletes the service where your data is held? If you have copies of everything stored either in your own computer, what happens if you have a hard drive crash or other disaster? If you have one or more recent backup copies, such a loss would be inconvenient but not a disaster.

Of course, you might want to back up more than your genealogy files. Family photographs, your checkbook register, all sorts of word processing documents, email messages, and much more need to be backed up regularly. Why not do that on the first day of each month? or even more often?

SaveOr is an easy-to-use Software Platform to document and manage the ownership, transfer, and history of your family's tangible personal property for estate planning purposes.  

Are you worried about what will happen to your parents' beloved possessions when they pass away? SaveOr is here to help. Our company was born from a personal experience when our founder's grandmother passed away without a clear plan for her belongings. It caused chaos within the family as everyone struggled to decide who would inherit what. 

We don't want anyone else to go through the same experience, which is why we created SaveOr. Our mission is to make it easy for families to document their favorite belongings and collaborate with each other to ensure that each item goes to the person who cherishes it the most. By using our product, you can preserve the memories behind each item and ensure that your loved one's wishes are fulfilled.

Do you find it difficult to bring up the topic of inheritance with your parents? Are there items you want but feel too uncomfortable to ask about? Or perhaps your parents have been pressuring you to take on their estate? We understand these challenges all too well, so we're here to help. Using SaveOr is an easier way to start this process and facilitate these difficult conversations. 

With SaveOr, you can plan in advance and focus on the positive memories of a well-lived life. Don't wait until it's too late – try SaveOr today and ensure your family's legacy is preserved for generations to come.

You can find SaveOr at: https://www.saveor.com.

Here is another article that is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it caught my eye. I learned Morse Code when I was 12 years old. While that was many years ago, I can still copy Morse Code at rather high speeds.

Despite modern communication methods, the art of Morse code remains a timeless and valuable skill. Fortunately, the Internet offers many accessible resources that can help anyone learn Morse code from the comfort of their own home. If you’re ready to begin mastering this skill, check out our recommendations for the best websites to learn Morse code.

You can read more of this article at: https://www.maketecheasier.com/best-websites-learn-morse-code/. 

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A new era of medical discoveries, treatments and cures is on the horizon, researchers say, following the announcement that an unprecedented trove of genetic information is to be made available to scientists. Health researchers from around the world can now apply to study the whole genomes of half a million people enrolled in UK Biobank, a biomedical research project that has compiled detailed health and lifestyle records on individuals since it began 20 years ago. The move on Thursday amounts to the largest number of whole-genome sequences ever released for medical research. The sequences will be used with UK Biobank's records and other data to delve deeply into the genetics of everything -- from people's risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other conditions, to individuals' sleep and exercise patterns.

Researchers believe the new data will allow them to calculate people's individual risk scores for a raft of cancers and other diseases, and so work out who could benefit most from early screening. They should also gain a deeper understanding of serious genetic conditions such as Huntington's and motor neurone disease, which have often been studied in small numbers of severely affected patients. Health experts from academia, the government, industry and charities can apply for access though they have to be approved and study the genomes through a protected database stripped of identifying details such as names, addresses, birth dates, and GP information.

With that number of whole genomes in hand, researchers will be able to find much rarer genes which drive diseases, including those that behave like switches and turn other genes on and off.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/7acxn4cd.

Here is another article that is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I suspect it will interest anyone who has a need or at least an interest in low-cost, but powerful, Windows computers.

An article by Joe Humphrey published in the chromeunboxed.com web site caught my eye. It describes a new offering that will soon be available from Microsoft. In short, it describes a (future) service from Microsoft that will allow your low-cost Chromebook (and other) computers to access full-powered Windows computers in the cloud. 

The article states:

Microsoft has announced the launch of what they are calling “Windows app,” a new service designed to stream the full Windows desktop operating system from the cloud to various devices, including Chromebooks. This new offering from Microsoft signifies a major shift in how the company thinks users will be using Windows in the future and is clearly a response to the “Chromebook threat.”

Let’s first dive into what this new service entails exactly. The Windows App is essentially a new remote desktop hub that enables users to stream Windows Cloud PC and remote desktop services on a range of devices. This includes not only other Windows machines but also iPhones, iPads, Macs, and any device equipped with a desktop browser, i.e. Chromebooks. Android devices are currently not supported. You can view a preview version of the app here.

Microsoft describes the Windows App as a “gateway” to several key services: Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, Microsoft Dev Box, and Remote Desktop Services.

If you are interested, you can read the full article at: https://tinyurl.com/48fn35ht.

Over the past few days, quite a few Google Drive users have noticed files go missing, and now Google is confirming that it is looking into the issue, which is caused by the desktop app.

To summarize the ongoing situation, Google Drive users have noticed that, suddenly, months or even years of files have gone missing. The issue simply eliminates the data from the account, almost reverting the account back to before that data was made. In some cases, spreadsheet data would be missing from recent weeks, months, or years – but present from a former date.

Obviously, it’s a concerning problem, especially for business users.

In a brief post on its Community forums, Google formally acknowledged the missing file issue and confirmed that the problem stems from the Drive for Desktop app.

While there’s no explanation for the bug, Google says that a “limited subset of Drive for desktop users” are seeing the problem and that it is related to versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0, which recently rolled out. Google is still “investigating” the problem, so there’s no word on a fix just yet.

Google further tells users to avoid disconnecting their Google account from the Drive for desktop app and that they should not delete or move data from the “DriveFS” folder on their machines, located under AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS on Windows and Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS on macOS. Google does recommend making a copy of this folder, though, if there is enough space on the system.