The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. Please do not forward this article to others without the author’s permission.

NOTE #1: 

This is part #2 of a 2-part article.

Last week's article introduced the concept of Boolean search terms for use on Google. That article is still available at https://eogn.com/page-18080/13400854. You might want to read that article again now to refresh it in your mind before proceeding with new topics. This week I will describe several advanced topics.

Quotation Marks
Last week's article described the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT (minus sign), and the concept of placing terms inside parenthesis. These search terms work well for single words, but you may find you need to include multiple words or phrases. For instance, you might be searching for an ancestor with an unusual name but perhaps not as unusual as you first thought. Perhaps there were two or more men of the same name who lived in different places at different times. For instance, as mentioned in last week’s article, I frequently search for the name of Washington Harvey Eastman. I have found two men of the same name. If one of them has many online references and the other has only a few, finding the person with fewer references can be problematic.
Let's make a hypothetical assumption: two men of the same name are listed in Google's indexes. We will assume that one man lived in Maine and is rarely mentioned on Google while the other lived in North Carolina and has dozens, perhaps hundreds, of references on the search engine. Of course, I am interested in the rarely-mentioned man, the one in Maine. I might be tempted to specify the following search:
Washington Harvey Eastman -North Carolina
Notice the minus sign in the above search, signifying NOT.
The above search will not accomplish what I want. Keep in mind that, unless specified otherwise, Google parses the search terms, one word at a time. The above search says to look for all pages that have the words Washington, Harvey, Eastman, and Carolina on the page but NOT the word North. The reason here is that the only word immediately following the minus sign is the word North. Every other word in this string – including Carolina – is taken as a word to search for. This is not going to work. The better solution is to eliminate both the word North and the word Carolina. Your better solution is to specify:
Washington Harvey Eastman -North -Carolina
The above will indeed eliminate any references to North Carolina found on a web page; but, it also eliminates any references to the single word North as well as eliminates any references to Carolina. It might even eliminate references you want, such as a reference to Washington Harvey Eastman and his wife Carolina Eastman who lived in North Bangor. In other words, the above search term is still too broad to accomplish what you seek.
In fact, this example needs to eliminate a phrase, not individual words. You specify phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. The better method is to specify a search of:
Washington Harvey Eastman -“North Carolina”
This eliminates the phrase of North Carolina but does not block access to pages containing references to South Carolina or to a woman's name of Carolina or to any reference to the word North. Again, the dash, or minus sign, is immediately preceding the word(s) I do not want to search for with no space after the dash.
Of course, you can combine quotation marks and other Boolean search terms, such as parentheses. Let's use a new example. Perhaps I want to find information about a man named William or John Smith who lived in Denver, Colorado. One method of specifying the search is:
"John Smith" OR “William Smith” AND "Denver, Colorado" 

Even though I have capitalized the proper names here, capital letters are not necessary. This example will work the same with the word AND omitted. However, we can refine it still more. Since the search looks for the exact string of characters that is enclosed in quotes, this search specifies that the state name of Colorado must be spelled out, not abbreviated, and there must be a comma immediately after the word, Denver. The search terms are correct technically but may not accomplish what you wish.
A better approach is to specify a search of:
(john OR william) AND smith AND denver AND (colorado OR co)
This will find all the commonly-used variations, including: 

John Smith of Denver, CO
John Smith in Denver, Colorado
William Smith Colorado Mining Company in Denver, Texas

Of course, even more complex variations may be specified, such as:
“John Smith” OR “William Smith” NOT Denver NOT (Colorado OR CO)
The above will find references to either of the two men's names as long as Denver and either Colorado, or CO are not mentioned on the web page.
Wildcard searches (*)
The asterisk (*), or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you include * within a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown word(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the following search will find variations of my mystery ancestor:
Washington * Eastman

The above will find Washington Harvey Eastman, Washington Eastman, Washington H. Eastman, as well as Washington Williams Eastman 
I am not looking for that last example but Google doesn't know that. Google searches for whatever I specify, not what I am thinking.

Note #3: the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words.

Note #4: Using an asterisk between numbers may not work the way you expected. If the asterisk is between two numbers, it is interpreted as a mathematical symbol for “multiplied by.” A search of:
32 * 65 Will return “2080”

Search exactly as is (+)
Google employs synonyms automatically so that it finds more pages than you want. For instance, a search for the word genealogy also finds pages that specify “family history.” Sometimes this is a bit too much help. By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don't add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around a phrase after the + sign will do the same thing. For instance:
+genealogy
or
+”family history”

Non-Boolean Considerations
Punctuation
Generally, punctuation is ignored.
Special Characters
Special characters are generally ignored, including @#$%^&*()=+[]\ and other special characters. 


Search within a specific website (site)
Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, to search for past articles about MacFamilyTree software on the www.eogn.com web site, specify a search of:
site:eogn.com Macintosh
http://www.google.com/advanced_search

The above search specifies to search only the eogn.com web site for the specified search terms.

NOTE #4: The prefix of the web site should not be specified unless you wish to narrow the search to only a subset of the site. Generally speaking, do not specify www or similar letters before the site address of eogn.com unless you have a specific reason for doing so.

NOTE #5: You should not enter a space after the colon.

Advanced Search, the user friendly method of searching for information

Many of the above tips have been captured in a “fill in the blanks” menu to be found at Google Advanced Search:. 

Most of the search terms mentioned in this article are included in the Advanced Search menu. There are a few exceptions, however. Even more help information can be found by going to the Advanced Search Tips. 

Google used to have a link to Advanced Search displayed on its home page. However, that link was removed some time ago. So, how would you find Google’s Advanced Search? Yes, that’s right: search for it in Google!

Enter the following:
Google Advanced Search
That should show you a link to: https://www.google.com/advanced_search
The Google Advanced Search page displays a user-friendly method of performing all the items I have described previously, along with even more. For instance:
"Find pages with... all these words:" works exactly the same as AND that was described earlier.
"Find pages with... this exact word or phrase:" works exactly the same as the quote marks explained earlier.
"Find pages with... none of these words:" works exactly the same as the minus sign explained earlier.
"Find pages with... site or domain:" works exactly the same as searching within a specific website as explained earlier.
You can find numerous other capabilities as well in the Google Advanced Search page. You do not have to memorize cryptic commands!
Finally, take a look in the lower left corner of the Google Advanced Search page. To find even more commands
Yes, there are even more options available!
The best way to learn Google’s powerful search capabilities is to dive in and experiment. Try one thing. If that doesn’t work, try another. If that also does not work, try a third, fourth, fifth variation or even more. You cannot break anything so just experiment with all the options you can think of.
Google is your friend
Google is a very powerful tool, useful for finding genealogy information as well as for a myriad of other uses. By investing a bit of time now to learn a few of Google's capabilities, you will receive “paybacks” of more information found about the topics you seek and fewer false hits to wade through. All of this and much more is available at your fingertips at http://www.google.com

During the remodeling of John McIntire Library, MCCOGS Genealogy Library will move to the Ohio University Zanesville Library in Herrold Hall.

The last day the Genealogy Library will be open is Saturday, September 14.

We can not take all of our collection because of the space available to us. So we will be focusing on the materials that apply to Muskingum County, including the yearbooks, and family histories.

We do not have a date set for reopening at OUZ. Once we unpack, we will need some time for the volunteers to familiarize themselves with the new location. We will announce on Facebook, local media, etc.

The Genealogical Society is having a book sale during their normal hours of operation that will consist of duplicate materials and historical literature that has less to do with local genealogy.

Thank you for your patience during this time.

Studies that try to replicate the findings of published research are hard to come by: it can be difficult to find funders to support them and journals to publish them. And when these papers do get published, it’s not easy to locate them, because they are rarely linked to the original studies.

A database described in a preprint posted in April1 aims to address these issues by hosting replication studies from the social sciences and making them more traceable and discoverable. It was launched as part of the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT), a community-driven initiative that teaches principles of open science and reproducibility to researchers.

The initiative follows other efforts to improve the accessibility of replication work in science, such as the Institute for Replication, which hosts a database listing studies published in selected economics and politics journals that academics can choose to replicate.

The team behind the FORRT database hopes that it will draw more attention to replication studies, which it argues is a fundamental part of science. The database can be accessed through the web application Shiny, and will soon be available on the FORRT website.

Nature Index spoke to one of the project’s leaders, Lukas Röseler, a metascience researcher and director of the University of Münster’s Center for Open Science in Germany.

Why did you create this database?

We’re trying to make it easier for researchers to make their replication attempts public, because it’s often difficult to publish them, regardless of their outcome.

We also wanted to make it easier to track replication studies. If you’re building on previous research and want to check whether replication studies have already been done, it’s often difficult to find them, partly because journals tend to not link them to the original work.

We started out with psychology, which has been hit hard by the replication crisis, and have branched out to studies in judgement and decision-making, marketing and medicine. We are now looking into other fields to understand how their researchers conduct replication studies and what replication means in those contexts.

Who might want to use the database?

A mentor of mine wrote a textbook on social psychology and said that he had no easy way of screening his 50 pages of references for replication attempts. Now, he can enter his references into our database and check which studies have been replicated.

The database can also be used to determine the effectiveness of certain procedures by tracking the replication history of studies. Nowadays, for instance, academics are expected to pre-register their studies — publishing their research design, hypotheses and analysis plans before conducting the study — and make their data freely available online. We would like to empirically see whether interventions such as these affect how likely a study is to be replicable.

You can read the rest of this article by Dalmeet Singh Chawla in an article published in nature at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02598-w.

Thanks to our partner Edgecombe County Memorial Library, Magazine Club of Tarboro yearly programs dating from 1910 to 1984 are now online. The Magazine Club is a literary club in Tarboro and each year they created a program that showed their monthly meeting topics, who was hosting, and what they were going to discuss. It was a wonderful way to see the various cultural topics being discussed by women in eastern North Carolina throughout the 20th century. 

We also digitized two panoramas of Main Street in Tarboro, one of each side of the street, that were done in preparation for remodel work being done to the facades along the streets. 

To view more materials from our partner Edgecombe County Memorial Library, visit their partner page or their website here. 

San Francisco’s long relationship with X is nearly over — and city officials are far from heartbroken.

Elon Musk is shuttering his social media company’s headquarters in a gritty downtown neighborhood in the coming weeks and will move its last employees based there south to offices in Palo Alto and San Jose. New headquarters will be set up in Texas.

But city officials are not lamenting the exit. X bears little resemblance to the company that San Francisco wooed with a tax break more than a decade ago, when it was Twitter, to help anchor a budding tech hub in a downtrodden neighborhood near City Hall known as Mid-Market. The pandemic, and Mr. Musk’s 2022 acquisition of the company and subsequent gutting of its work force, reduced the headquarters to a ghost town.

“I share the perspective that most San Franciscans have, which is good riddance,” said City Attorney David Chiu, who as a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors backed the tax break that lured Twitter to Mid-Market in 2012.

You can read more in an article by Heather Knight and Kate Conger published in the New York Times at: https://tinyurl.com/5fcjkc4n.

The Society of Genealogists is holding a one-day event in London that promises to be a "a groundbreaking event that promises to redefine the way you perceive genealogy.” Here is a press release:

Are you ready to embark on an extraordinary journey through time and around the world? Join us on October 5th for a groundbreaking event that promises to redefine the way you perceive genealogy. Introducing NextGENeration Discoveries, where innovation meets tradition, and where the past meets the future.

Set to unfold from 9:30 am to 9 pm British Summer Time, this event is not your ordinary gathering of genealogists. With young speakers hailing from four different continents, NextGENeration Discoveries transcends geographical boundaries to offer a truly global perspective on the art of tracing one's roots.

Dive deep into a diverse array of talks that explore genealogical methodology in ways you've never imagined before. From fun and unorthodox strategies to break down brick walls to tackling genealogical complications such as adoptions, illegitimate births, criminals, slave owners, and runaways, our lineup of speakers will equip you with the tools and knowledge to conquer any challenge that comes your way.

But that's not all. Our program also includes sessions on the classification of sources and data, captivating case studies featuring DNA analysis, oral history, and even the uncovering of false identities. Discover the profound benefits of delving into your family history, from exploring biological and cultural identities to making connections with your ancestors that resonate deeply within your soul.

We're particularly excited to shed light on the tangible benefits of genealogy, especially for the younger generation. Gen-Z, listen up! Learn how tracing your roots can provide invaluable insights into your own identity and shape your understanding of the world around you.

Moreover, NextGENeration Discoveries isn't just about the past—it's also about the future. Explore the intersection of genealogy and healthcare as we discuss the role of family history in understanding conditions like Alzheimer's, dementia, and terminal illnesses.

And let's not forget about our rich ancestral heritage. From Eastern Europe and Ukraine to Nigeria, from Wales to Louisiana, and from Ireland to England, our event celebrates the diverse tapestry of human history, inviting you to uncover the stories of your ancestors from every corner of the globe.

As the day draws to a close, don't miss our riveting panel discussion on Transitioning from Passion to Profession. Whether you're a seasoned genealogist or just beginning your journey, gain invaluable insights from experts who have turned their passion for family history into a rewarding profession and those on the cusp of this transition.

Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a truly transformative experience. Mark your calendars for October 5th and join us for NextGENeration Discoveries—a journey of discovery, connection, and inspiration that will leave you forever changed. See you there!

Book here: https://members.sog.org.uk/events/66141a9f1fce380008a49ebe/description

Pay what you can

Book now: Introduction to Latin for Genealogists, a  6-week evening course  starting Wednesday, 4 September 2024.

40 Wharf Road,

London N1 7GS

The (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration issued this press release almost a month ago. I missed it at the time but "better late than never:"

Washington, DC

The National Archives and Records Administration today announced the upcoming closure of three facilities and relocation of two offices. These changes will allow for the reallocation of more than $5 million in facility costs per year into digital transformation and other critical priorities to advance the agency’s mission.

“The federal government’s transition to electronic recordkeeping requires us to invest significantly in next-generation systems to support preserving, protecting, and sharing the increasingly born-digital records of the United States,” said Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan. “The decision to close facilities was not made lightly. These changes will allow us to invest in digital transformation, expanding access, improving customer service, and increasing public engagement with the history of our nation.”

The following locations will be affected:

National Archives in New York City, NY 

The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House facility will be open to researchers until Friday, August 16. Over the next several months, records held in New York will be transferred to National Archives locations in Philadelphia and Kansas City. Information about the destination of specific record series will be made available at www.archives.gov/nyc. These records will be available at the new locations and through digital service. Educational programs will continue to be supported by National Archives staff and from other locations.

Barack Obama Presidential Library Temporary Site at Hoffman Estates, IL 

The records and artifacts of the Barack Obama Presidential Library, which have been held temporarily at Hoffman Estates, will be permanently moved to College Park, MD, in late FY 2025. The center of operations for the Library will also shift to College Park, MD, beginning late next year. To learn more about this digital-first Presidential library, see www.obamalibrary.gov/about-us. 

Temporary Records Storage Facility in Fairfield, OH  

This facility is operated by the National Archives Dayton Federal Records Center (FRC) in Ohio. The records in the Fairfield facility are being relocated to other FRCs, including the Dayton FRC and Great Lakes storage facility during FY25. You can learn more about the FRC program at www.archives.gov/frc. 

Office of the Federal Register and Office of Government Information Services, Washington, DC 

The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) currently located at the Government Publishing Office in Washington, DC, will be relocated in FY 2025. OFR will transition to the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. OGIS will utilize space at the National Archives in Washington, DC, and College Park, MD.  

A collaborative project between two critical components of West Texas A&M University’s research efforts is offering a permanent repository for vital regional history.

Cornette Library and the Center for the Study of the American West are working together to flesh out the library’s digital archive with photos, oral histories, maps and other articles that help tell the story of the region.

“We are working to protect and preserve our region’s history in a digital format so that anyone can find it,” said Dr. Alex Hunt, CSAW director, Regents Professor of English and Vincent-Haley Professor of Western Studies.

The partnership also includes Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, whose archives will store physical copies of the items.

CSAW interns—funded through grants by such entities as Xcel Energy and the National Endowment of the Humanities—are cataloging items for preservation. Among them are oral histories for CSAW’s ongoing Forgotten Frontera project; histories of Barrel and Indian Creek Ranch and Buffalo Lake; and snapshots of the life of Montie Ritchie, the grandson of pivotal area pioneer Cornelia Adair. 

“It’s not just portraits that are important historically,” Hunt said. “These photos are a great view of the everyday life of this significant man.”

The digital archive also includes the map collection of area history teacher J. Michael Harter—colorful, hand-drawn renderings of the history and geography of the Llano Estacado.

Also preserved is the Texas Panhandle Curriculum Initiative, which provides educators with lesson plans about regional topics that meet Texas Education Agency’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements.

“It’s rewarding and comforting to have this material available online,” said Coco Duran-Anzua, a junior general studies major from Abernathy who has assisted with the Forgotten Fronteras oral history project. “What you have worked so hard on, so passionately on, is safe and available to the public. It feels more formal to have it preserved.”

Also being digitized are dozens of boxes of newsletters and photographs chronicling the history of Southwest Public Service.

Cornette’s institutional repository has been in place since 2014 and is an easily accessible repository of the vast array of WT’s contributions as a regional research university. Included in the archive are data sets from professors in WT’s College of Engineering; political science research from Dr. Dave Rausch, WT’s Teel Bivins Professor of Political Science; theses and dissertations from 2014 on; and posters from faculty and student research presentations dating back to 2020, among others.

“All of this is still growing,” said Patrick Diepen, Cornette Library archivist and manager of the repository. “We are spending more time on this project to make it grow.”

Exceling as a regional research university is the primary goal of the University’s long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World.

That plan is fueled by the historic One West comprehensive fundraising campaign, which reached its initial $125 million goal 18 months after publicly launching in September 2021. The campaign’s new goal is to reach $175 million by 2025; currently, it has raised nearly $160 million.

About West Texas A&M University

WT is located in Canyon, Texas, on a 342-acre residential campus. Established in 1910, the University has been part of The Texas A&M University System since 1990. WT, a Hispanic Serving Institution since 2016, boasts an enrollment of about 10,000 and offers 59 undergraduate degree programs and more than 40 graduate degrees, including two doctoral degrees. The University is also home to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, the largest history museum in the state and the home of one of the Southwest’s finest art collections. The Buffaloes are a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference and offers 14 men’s and women’s athletics programs.

The following announcement was written by MyHeritage:

It’s that time again! We’ve just updated the data for Theory of Family Relativity™, adding millions of new theories to help you uncover how you’re related to your DNA Matches.  

Theory of Family Relativity™ is a groundbreaking feature that can save you hours of work trying to understand your connection to your DNA Matches. It utilizes MyHeritage’s huge database of 49 million family trees and 20.8 billion historical records to provide you with plausible theories about how you and your DNA Matches are related.

Since the last update, our DNA database has grown, as have the number of family tree profiles and historical records on MyHeritage. As a result, the overall number of theories has grown significantly. 

Haven’t taken a DNA test yet? Order MyHeritage DNA today!

Theory of Family Relativity™ by the numbers

Thanks to this update:

• The total number of theories has grown by 40%, to 233,400,486.
• The number of DNA kits with at least one theory has grown by 16%, to 2,947,678.
• The number of DNA Matches that have a theory has grown to 167,111,082, representing a 43% increase.
  
• The total number of paths has increased by 35%, to 1,629,635,874.
  

Viewing new theories

If new theories were found, you’ll see a purple banner at the top of your DNA Matches page. Click “View theories” to view all matches that have a theory.

Watch the video below to learn how to use Theory of Family Relativity™:

When a DNA Match has a theory, this is indicated on the DNA Match card. You can also filter your DNA Matches to only show those with a Theory of Family Relativity™. Click the “Filters” icon on the top right corner of the page. Then, click “All tree details” on the far left, and select “Has Theory of Family Relativity™.” This will display all DNA Matches that have a theory. A “NEW” badge will appear next to the theory on the DNA Match card for 30 days.

Click “View theory” to see the detailed path showing how the algorithm arrived at the proposed relationship. In certain cases, multiple possible paths may exist for a given theory. If more than one path exists, you can toggle between them on the page. Having more than one path for a theory strengthens its reliability.

It’s important to review the relationship path(s) for each theory, and decide for yourself if the theory is reasonable. If it appears to be correct, you can confirm the theory using the button that appears directly above the chart showing the relationship path. If the theory seems incorrect, you can reject it.

Confirming or rejecting a theory (click to zoom)

How can I increase my chances of receiving theories?

To boost your chances of receiving a theory, continue growing your family tree. The more details you add, especially about your great-grandparents and other distant ancestors, the more discoveries you’ll receive. These could lead the algorithm to uncover new theories about your relationships to your DNA Matches. You can also encourage your relatives to grow their family trees and take a DNA test, to increase your chances of making new discoveries.

All users who have new theories will receive an email from MyHeritage letting them know there’s a new theory to review. Theory of Family Relativity™ is a premium feature on MyHeritage. To view a full theory, a site subscription (Premium, PremiumPlus, Complete, or Omni) is required. Users who upload their DNA data to MyHeritage can pay a one-time unlock fee to access advanced DNA features.

Haven’t taken a MyHeritage DNA test yet? There’s no time like the present! Join in the fun and order your DNA kit today!

Editor’s note: In the UND LEADS Strategic Plan, the “Service” core value calls on the University to “promote the arts and humanities, which contribute to the cultural vibrancy of the state and help attract and retain talent in our communities.” 

The story below describes a philanthropic effort by the Chester Fritz Library to share one of its rich arts-and-humanities collections with a Minneapolis nonprofit, an effort in line with the best traditions of the UND LEADS Strategic Plan.

****

On Aug. 23, the Chester Fritz Library made a unique donation to Norway House, a Minneapolis-based Norwegian cultural center. Curt Hanson, head of Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections at the library, drove to Minneapolis with 150 bygdebøker in tow.

Bygdebøker, roughly translated as “farm books” or “village books,” are invaluable resources for genealogists. They contain detailed family lineages and local histories from Norway. Each book covers the history of a specific Norwegian county (referred to in Norway as a fylker), complete with family and school pictures and legal and death records, among other things.

Hanson said that UND’s Arnie G. Brekke Bygdebok Collection is the largest of its kind in the U.S. and, with more than 1,600 volumes, rivals some of Norway’s collections.

“We’ve been collecting bygdebøker since the 1980s, because North Dakota has such a large population with Norwegian ancestry,” Hanson said. “Arne Brekke, who taught in the Languages Department, helped the library start its collection, and he’s largely responsible for how big it is today.”

Bygdebøker are not widely circulated, and many are written exclusively in Norwegian, so finding specific volumes outside of Norway is a rarity. This specificity has made them a frequently requested resource at the library, Hanson said, which motivated the library to expand its collection. But over the decades, the library ended up with more duplicate volumes than it knew what to do with.

Mike Swanson, a former Chester Fritz Library archivist, proposed that UND donate its duplicates after he learned that Norway House was expanding its building. This expansion, which opened in 2022 with a ribbon cutting attended by Queen Sonja of Norway, includes a space for genealogical research materials and other historical texts provided by the library.

“They’ve just kind of been sitting in a room collecting dust here at the library,” Hanson said. “When Mike found out that Norway House was building up its own library, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to give these books to people who would really appreciate them.”

Race Fisher, development associate at Norway House, said the donation will be an important addition to the library’s growing collection. While many of the books are untranslated, aspiring genealogists need only a few words to navigate the texts and connect to their history, Fisher said.

“It’s incredible what you can find in these books,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll trace your family back as far as the 1600s; a few pages of a bygdebøk can uncover centuries of family history. But it also allows people to make tangible connections to people in contemporary Norway.

“It’s this kind of circular exchange that happens when people do genealogical research.”

As a cultural center, Norway House is in the business of connecting its American patrons to their ancestry and heritage. Until now, they’ve regularly tapped UND and other institutions for help with bygdeboker, but Fisher hopes that having a collection in-house will encourage visitors to reflect on Norway’s history and their own as their recent renovations continue to bring foot traffic.

“UND’s reputation for having this great collection of bygdebøker, and the University’s willingness to help people as they begin this journey has been really meaningful,” Fisher said. “We’re really grateful for UND’s willingness to make this contribution. It’s so exciting to offer these resources to our patrons and the larger Norwegian American community.”