RootsTech by FamilySearch has announced four of its keynote speakers for the world’s largest family discovery celebration, which will take place March 6–8, 2025.

Author Ndaba Mandela (grandson of Nelson Mandela), prominent artist Dana Tanamachi, and Olympic and Paralympic Gold-medalists Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall, are the first keynote speakers to be announced. They will take the main stage to share their unique and inspiring personal, family and historical experiences with the global RootsTech 2025 audience.

Register to attend the 3-day event online or in person at RootsTech.org.

Ndaba Mandela

RootsTech by FamilySearch has announced that speaker, writer and philanthropist Ndaba Mandela (the grandson of Nelson Mandela) will be a keynote speaker during the world’s largest family discovery celebration, which will occur March 6–8, 2025. Photo provided by FamilySearch.All rights reserved.

Ndaba Mandela, a renowned speaker, author and social activist, grew up in South Africa. His grandfather, Nelson Mandela, was a prominent politician and public influence, spending 27 years in prison for his activism against Apartheid. When he was released, he invited Ndaba to live with him. While living with his grandfather, Ndaba was taught many lessons that inspired him to become a happy and effective global citizen. He attributes many of his teachings to his grandfather. Ndaba Mandela’s virtual keynote message will be available to watch at RootsTech.org starting Thursday, March 6.

Dana Tanamachi

Dana Tanamachi is a world-renowned artist. She is well known for her three-story mural at Starbucks inside New York City’s Empire State Building and for many other projects, including features on the covers of O Magazine and Time Magazine and her art on the US postal stamp. Dana is coming to Rootstech to share her own family story and its influence on her journey of becoming the artist she is now. Listen online or watch in person on Friday, March 7.

Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall

Olympic Gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall and husband, Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhall, met at a high school track meet in Pocatello, Idaho, in 2017. They were married 5 years later. They both competed for Division I universities on their respective journeys to the Olympics, Tara at the University of Georgia, then the University of Texas, and Hunter for the University of Arkansas. Their journeys and relationship have captured the attention and hearts of fans all across the globe. They will share their incredible relationship and story with RootsTech on Saturday, March 8, available to watch in person or online.

What Is RootsTech?

RootsTech is a place to learn, be inspired, and make connections through family history. Hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by other leading genealogy organizations, we have hundreds of expert classes, tips and tricks videos, and inspiring stories that can help you experience family history like never before. Visit our on-demand learning library, or make plans to join us for our next virtual or in-person conference event.

Register for RootsTech 2025

Watch previous RootsTech keynotes and classes now on the RootsTech on-demand library.

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. We are a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use our 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 125 years. People access our services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 6,000 FamilySearch centers in 129 countries, including the main FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah

Lithographic print of P.T. Barnum

Milner Library is proud to announce the publication of the P.T. Barnum Letters and Ephemera, a digital collection drawn from Special Collections’ world-class circus holdings. This assemblage of 136 documents relating to Barnum and his many business ventures was originally collected by Walter Scholl, a former balloon ascensionist, parachute jumper, and retired printer from Chicago, who amassed a stellar collection of over 22,000 circus books, pieces of ephemera, and other items from a wide variety of sources. Scholl donated the lot to Milner Library in 1963-64, forming the basis of today’s Circus and Allied Arts Collection.

These intriguing, mundane, and sometimes confounding documents flesh out the world and writings of legendary showman Phineas Taylor Barnum, the man who revolutionized entertainment in 19th-century America. From important personal and professional correspondence to curious souvenirs saved from the dustbin of history, the collection illuminates the origins of modern show business through the works of a visionary self-promoter who blurred the lines between reality, entertainment, and humbug.

The collection includes a miniature oil painting of Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind.

Many of these seldom-seen documents deal with Barnum’s acquisition and later disposition of 760 acres of land in what is now metropolitan Denver, Colorado. On the advice of his daughter Helen and her husband Dr. William Buchtel, Barnum purchased the property for cheap during the bankruptcy of the Denver Villa Park Association in 1878, but his lofty goals for its development ran up against the relative undesirability of the land. Barnum ended up selling what he could, then transferring the remaining parcels to Helen for the price of one dollar. William became mayor of Villa Park, then renamed Barnum, upon its incorporation in 1887.

Other materials deal with the triumphant American debut of famed “Swedish Nightengale” Jenny Lind, which Barnum arranged and initially managed, as well as his eponymous dime museum in New York. The collection also sheds light on the Greatest Showman’s cozy relationship with the press and his embrace of the lecture circuit to generate additional revenue during the slow winter months.

The P.T. Barnum Letters and Ephemera are freely available online. Whether you’re a scholar researching American cultural history, a student exploring primary sources, or a circus enthusiast looking for a journey into the past, this collection promises to captivate and educate.

Officials with Stratford-Perth Archives say their new historical newspaper database has proved popular with the public, recording more than 53,000 visits in the nearly three months it's been online.

The archive launched in mid-September, allowing amateur and professional historians, and curious residents a way to look at old local newspapers dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The project kicked off in 2022, spearheaded by Jennifer Georgiou, an assistant archivist at the archives. For the last three years, she and two summer students have been working to scan the archives' microfilm and physical newspaper collection at a rate of about 12,000 to 28,000 pages each summer.

"I find now that a lot of researchers want a Google-esque database when looking for research," Georgiou said this week. "The numbers show that this has been a really great tool for researchers."

Users from as far away as New Zealand and Norway have looked at the database, said Betty Jo Belton, manager of archives services at Stratford-Perth Archives.

"We have heard from people who found information about family members just by searching the surname across a number of papers."

An advertisement for Milverton, Ont., merchant T.P. Roe, printed in the Nov. 13, 1913 edition of the Milverton Sun, makes a pitch to readers for "up-to-date" boots heading into the winter season. (Stratford-Perth Archives)

The scanned newspapers have been uploaded to a website operated by the non-profit OurDigitalWorld, which hosts digital artifacts for various Ontario libraries and archives.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/mpwdvedf.

Zoominar Series! IIJG Bi-Monthly Jewish Genealogical Online Presentations

“A Moroccan Jewish Genealogical Journey: Tracing Roots through DNA and the Paper Trail” with Dr. Raquel Levy-Toledano (France)

When: Sunday. Jan. 12, 2025, at 8:00 PM Israel / 1:00 PM EST (NY)   Sessions will last 1-hour, featuring a 45-minute presentation followed by a 15 minute Q&A period   Registration: Click here to reserve your place

Upcoming Zoominars:   * Baghdadi Surnames (Amb) Jacob Rosen, IIJG Deputy Chair (Israel) March 16, 2025   * History of the Farhi of Damascus and their involvement in Ottoman finance and politics Mr. Alain Farhi (USA) May 11, 2025

We look forward to seeing you!

To learn more about IIJG, please visit our website at https://www.iijg.org

The following is a press release written by folks at TheGenealogist:

Today TheGenealogist, a leading online family history and genealogy resource, announced the release of the complete 1910 Lloyd George Domesday survey records for Kent, a groundbreaking digital collection that offers unprecedented insights into early 20th-century British land ownership, properties and occupancy.

Smallhythe Place, Home of Actress Ellen Terry (Mrs Carew) in these new records 

This extensive record set covers over 1,400 square miles of Kent and documents nearly half a million individuals and organisations, providing genealogists, historians, and researchers with a detailed snapshot of the county's social and economic landscape at the turn of the 20th century.

The Lloyd George Domesday survey, officially known as the Finance Act 1910 valuation, was a comprehensive land and property assessment conducted to implement a new land taxation policy. The records represent a unique historical resource that captures intricate details about land ownership, property values, and local demographics during a pivotal period in British history.

Key Features of the Release:

- Comprehensive coverage of Kent's 1,400 square miles

- Detailed records of nearly 500,000 individuals and organisations

- Geolocated maps providing precise geographical context

- High-resolution digital images of original survey documents

"These records offer an extraordinary window into the social fabric of Kent in 1910," said Mark Bayley, Head of Online Development at TheGenealogist. "Researchers can explore detailed property information, trace land ownership, and uncover fascinating historical insights about communities across the county."

These records are now available to TheGenealogist subscribers, offering researchers an invaluable tool for understanding the historical landscape of Kent during the early 20th century.

This release brings the total coverage of the Lloyd Geoge Domesday to 8,600 Square miles and over 3.7 Million individuals and organisations covering London, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Surrey, and Wiltshire.

In these records is Robert Dyas, founder of the famous Ironmongors - read his story here:https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2024/the-untold-story-of-robert-dyas-a-century-of-customer-service-and-innovation-7910/

Explore the new records and start your genealogical journey today with TheGenealogist. To celebrate this release, for a limited time you can get a Diamond Subscription with a £25 S&N Genealogy Supplies Voucher and 12 Month Subscription to Discover Your Ancestors Periodical for just £119.95, saving over £69! You can claim this offer here: 

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/MGBLGD1224

The offer expires 31st January 2025.

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

The National Library of Finland has reached another milestone: it has now digitised all Finnish newspapers published in the 1940s. The newspapers offer a glimpse into an interesting turning point in Finnish history: the period after the Continuation War and the post-war ‘years of danger’ from 1944 to 1948 when issues covered in the press included the terms of peace, the Finnish weapons cache case and the Soviet-led Allied Control Commission in Finland.

In the 1940s over 200 Finnish-language newspaper titles were published, with a combined total of some 1.4 million pages. “We are pleased to add more newspaper material to our digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service. The 1940s were an interesting phase of Finnish history, and the digitisation of the material provides many new opportunities for its use,” says Director of Services Johanna Lilja. Swedish-language newspapers were digitised earlier with separate project funding under an agreement with the copyright management organisation Kopiosto. This means that both Finnish- and Swedish-language newspapers are now available in the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service.  

Tutkain agreement enables remote research use of Finnish 1940s newspapers 

As Finnish-language newspaper content from the 1940s is partially protected by copyright, the National Library cannot make it openly available online. However, the online research use of newspapers published until the end of 2021 is permitted to researchers and both seminar and master’s thesis students. This right is based on the Tutkain agreement concluded by the National Library, Kopiosto and Finnish higher education institutions. The agreement provides a foundation for research using digital methods.   
 
For Finnish-language newspapers, open online use is possible for those published until the end of 1939. In addition, the National Library’s digital material can be accessed in full at legal deposit libraries, where anyone can study, for example, the digitised newspapers from the 1940s.   

The digitisation of newspapers has continued at the National Library since the 1990s. At present, almost 20 million pages of newspapers are available in the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service. We are currently digitising newspapers issued in the 1950s. 

From: DigitalNC:

Interested in learning more about the War of 1812? Thanks to our new partners at the North Carolina Society Daughters of 1812, now you can! For the first time ever, six scrapbooks chronicling historic preservation, research, and reenactment are now available. Each scrapbook records written histories, historic banquets, and a variety of materials gathered by daughters of War of 1812 veterans in or around North Carolina. The scrapbooks date from as far back as 1940, to as recently as 2012, covering almost a century of historic engagement.

Each scrapbook contains a variety of records related to the operation of a historic preservation society. These range from letters written by Senators, to awards granted to members for their service in historic programming and outreach. A personal highlight are the colorful photographs of the Daughters’ reenactment events, where each member would dress in period-appropriate attire (often including their husbands, children, or even grandchildren!). Each members’ dress is evidence of their breathless devotion to historical accuracy, as well as their skill in sewing and tailoring! 

The written histories in each scrapbook are also an amazing way to find out more about North Carolina’s involvement in one of the lesser recognized aspects of American history. North Carolina witnessed several historic battles during the course of the war, and its coast bore witness to a rogues’ gallery of privateers, pirates, and buccaneers. Many histories are concerned with one Johnston Blakely, captain of the Wasp. During the War of 1812, Captain Blakely captured many British boats and disrupted countless others. He was a graduate of the University of Chapel Hill in its early days, and remained in North Carolina after his service. Another prominent name mentioned in the scrapbooks is Theodosia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr. Theodosia went missing off the coast of the Carolinas around the War of 1812, and several oral histories in the scrapbooks speculate on her fate. 

You can read these histories and discover North Carolina’s involvement in the War of 1812 online now here. Thanks again to our amazing partners at the North Carolina Chapter of the Daughters of the War of 1812 for making this collaboration possible. You can find their partner page on DigitalNC here, or visit their website online here.

After more than four years of litigation, a closely watched copyright case over the Internet Archive’s scanning and lending of library books is finally over after Internet Archive officials decided against exercising their last option, an appeal to the Supreme Court. The deadline to file an appeal was December 3.

With a consent judgment already entered to settle claims in the case, the official end of the litigation now triggers an undisclosed monetary payment to the plaintiff publishers, which, according to the Association of American Publishers, will “substantially” cover the publishers’ attorney fees and costs in the litigation.

“While we are deeply disappointed with the Second Circuit’s opinion in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the Internet Archive has decided not to pursue Supreme Court review,” reads a December 4 statement posted on the Internet Archive’s blog.“We will continue to honor the Association of American Publishers (AAP) agreement to remove books from lending at their member publishers’ requests.” The post added that the IA would continue work with supporters "to advocate for a future where libraries can purchase, own, lend, and preserve digital books.”

The end of the case comes after a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court in September delivered a swift and unequivocal decision that unanimously affirmed judge John G. Koeltl’s March 24, 2023, summary judgment ruling, which found the Internet Archive's program to scan and lend print library books to be copyright infringement.

“This appeal presents the following question: Is it ‘fair use’ for a nonprofit organization to scan copyright-protected print books in their entirety, and distribute those digital copies online, in full, for free, subject to a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio between its print copies and the digital copies it makes available at any given time, all without authorization from the copyright-holding publishers or authors? Applying the relevant provisions of the Copyright Act as well as binding Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent, we conclude the answer is no,” the 64-page decision reads.

The infringement lawsuit was first filed on June 1, 2020, in the Southern District of New York by Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley, and organized by the AAP. The suit specifically involved 127 works from the plaintiff publishers—a sample of the more than 33,000 plaintiff publishers' works said to be included in the Internet Archive's library—with initial court filings suggesting that the lA's collection included more than a total of 3.6 million works potentially under copyright.

Publisher and author groups had long been troubled by the IA's program and the concept of controlled digital lending. But a lawsuit did not appear imminent until March 2020, when the Internet Archive rattled publishers and authors by unilaterally launching its now shuttered National Emergency Library initiative, which temporarily removed restrictions on the IA's collection in response to the pandemic closures of schools and libraries.

In a statement, AAP reps celebrated what they characterized as a complete legal victory.

“After five years of litigation, we are thrilled to see this important case rest with the decisive opinion of the Second Circuit, which leaves no room for arguments that ‘controlled digital lending’ is anything more than infringement, whether performed by commercial or noncommercial actors, or aimed at authorship that is creative or factual in nature,” said AAP president and CEO Maria Pallante, in a statement. “As the Court recognized, the public interest—and the progress of art and science that is the mandate of the Constitution’s copyright clause—is served best when authors and their publisher licensees can decide the terms on which they make their works available.”

Meanwhile, the Internet Archive’s legal battles are not quite over. The IA is facing a similar, follow-on suit filed by a group of major record labels over its "Great 78" program, which collects vintage 20th century 78 RPM recordings, digitizes them, and makes them freely available to the public.

Since it opened in the 1930s, Devil’s Den State Park has attracted generations of Arkansans for its natural beauty. So much of what people love about the park, though, was carefully planned and made by the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps. They built the cabins and laid stone steps on the trails. They aligned roads with the landscape to create dramatic vistas, and even strategically cleared trees to improve the views. 

“The CCC came to Arkansas during a crucial time when state parks were just getting established. They were instrumental in building the infrastructure of key parks like Devil’s Den and Petit Jean,” said Angie Payne, principal investigator on the project, which was led by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas. 

CAST, in collaboration with the U of A Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, has documented the CCC’s work at Devil’s Den in a new website, ccc.cast.uark.edu, with a detailed history of the park supplemented with maps, documents and archival photos. 

“The Civilian Conservation Corps not only built the foundation for which Arkansas State Parks is known, but also established a legacy of craftsmanship and environmental stewardship that continues to inspire us today. This new website by CAST and the Fay Jones School brings their story to life, showcasing how their work has shaped beloved places like Devil’s Den State Park,” said Shea Lewis, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism. 

The website is part of a project that aims to eventually document all CCC-built parks in Arkansas. The work was completed in close coordination with Arkansas State Parks and was funded by a grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council. 

“It’s a resource that not only honors the past but also informs how we preserve and adapt these treasures for future generations,” Lewis said. 

DOCUMENTING THE PAST 

Hundreds of young men arrived at Devil’s Den in 1933. They had struggled during the Great Depression, but as members of the CCC they would be fed, housed and paid $30 a month. They set to work immediately clearing roads and creating the park. 

In an illustrated, multimedia history or “story-map,” visitors to the website can learn about “parkitecture,” the design style for America’s state and national parks that uses local stone and timber. They can listen to a video interview, recorded in 2003, with a man who was part of the Devil’s Den CCC crew. They can see how workers built the Lee Creek dam or explore a 3-D model of the overlook shelter. 

In another section, an interactive map lets visitors explore Devil’s Den across space and time. Long-vanished CCC camp buildings are marked on the map next to structures that still exist today. Click on a building, and a window appears with a description, historic and contemporary photos, blueprints and related documents.   

“One of the more unique aspects of our site is that the maps are directly connected to our archive. Users can easily go back and forth between the two,” said Manon Wilson, lead archivist on the project from CAST. 

The centralized archive currently features over 600 items (historical photos, documents and more) that have been contributed to the project by key partners including Arkansas State Archives, Arkansas State Parks, the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History and the personal collection of Karen Rollet-Crocker. 

The man suspected of killing an 18-year-old Federal Way woman in 1988 was identified eight months after he died of cancer, closing the cold case.

On Nov. 30, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department revealed in an online post that a suspect had been found in the 1988 cold case murder of Tracy Whitney. According to the post and an accompanying video, DNA swabs were taken from her body, and multiple people who knew or dated her were interviewed, but the case went cold for years.

In 2005, the DNA was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigations Combined DNA Index System, but no match was found. However, after the Washington State Attorney General offered a grant in 2022, the sheriff’s department submitted the DNA found on Whitney to a lab for genetic genealogy, and a match was found for the suspect.

“Unfortunately our suspect, John Guillot Jr., had died a few weeks prior. Detectives matched the suspect’s DNA to Guillot’s biological son to confirm Guillot Jr. was the suspect,” the post said. “There were no connections between Tracy and Guillot Jr. and detectives believe this was a stranger abduction, rape and murder.”

Details of the murder

On Aug. 28, 1988, Pierce County deputies responded to a call of a body found in the Puyallup River near Sumner. Fishermen had located the body of a woman who was nude where the Puyallup and White Rivers meet, according to the sheriff’s department.

Following the body’s discovery, detectives were called to the scene. An autopsy was performed, revealing that the woman’s cause of death was asphyxia caused by strangulation and probable smothering. She also had several blunt-force injuries and was believed to have been sexually assaulted. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Two months later, the woman was identified as Whitney through dental records. According to a video on the incident posted by the sheriff’s department, Det. Sgt. Lindsay Kirkegaard said that through the investigation, there were many suspects, including current and previous boyfriends, and there were rumors of who could have been involved.