The Commonwealth of Kentucky announced it has partnered with FamilySearch to digitize and preserve tens of thousands of primary records, such as birth, death and marriage certificates that are currently on microfilm reels.

The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA) and volunteers from the Kentucky Genealogical Society (KYGS) are now reaching out to the state’s county clerks, the official custodians of these records, to notify them of the opportunity to have their records digitized free of charge by FamilySearch.

They can take advantage of this opportunity simply by advising KDLA that their records may be digitized using a records release form.

In return, the clerks and KDLA will receive copies of the digitized records, and FamilySearch will post a copy on their free online database.

“Local records are some of the most irreplaceable resources for the discovery of documentation of the Commonwealth’s populace. Records like those of marriage, probate and land ownership have been created from each county’s origins, resulting in some of the most continuous sources of the state’s history,” said Rusty Heckaman, state archivist for KDLA.

“Together they are invaluable to the genealogist and researcher alike for the picture they can help paint of our ancestors’ lives. The participation of FamilySearch in the digitization of these records presents a huge opportunity to make these records more accessible to the public. Their increased use can only further promote the value these records hold and increase awareness of the wealth of resources in repositories like KDLA and in the courthouses throughout our state.”

In July, the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center (Center) launched a new digital archive providing free public access to resources from its historic collections. This collections portal is made possible through a partnership with the Permanent Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that provides long-term digital storage for historic records to individuals and nonprofit organizations.

The Center stewards historical material dating to the Hawaiian Kingdom, the republic and territorial periods, through statehood. In addition to court-related art, objects, and artifacts, the Center’s archives hold a range of physical and digital resources, unique to the institution, that carry significant educational and historical importance for current and future generations.

Probate record of (the late) Kuhina Nui Victoria Kamāmalu (Kaʻahumanu IV): Dated October 4, 1867. Lists John O. Dominis (Legislator of the House of Nobles, husband of Princess, later Queen, Liliʻuokalani) and Mataio Kekūanaōʻa (father of Victoria Kamāmalu and last to hold title of Kuhina Nui) as co-administrators of Kaʻahumanu IV’s estate, who passed away on May 29, 1866. Later, when her father Kekūanaōʻa died on November 24, 1868, Kaʻahumanu IV’s estate passed to her half-sister Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani, who later willed it to Bernice Pauahi Bishop, aliʻi and wife of Charles Reed Bishop (document signer), which upon their death later became part of the Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate.

Curator of Collections & Programs Brieanah Gouveia explains, “The Center’s collections capture Hawaiʻi’s unique civic history, showcasing some of the people, institutions, and events that shaped law, public policy, and government in the islands over the last 200 years. Together these influences created the unique hybrid legal system, and social institutions, that characterize Hawaiʻi today.”

The Center began its partnership with Permanent in 2022, to expand public access to its collections and share the history of Hawaiʻi’s civic story with broader audiences. Since then, more than 10 Judiciary volunteers have helped scan and digitize records to prepare them for the new digital archive.

In February of this year, nonprofit Friends of the Judiciary History Center of Hawaiʻi received a grant from Permanent to hire a student intern from the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) at Mānoa’s Library and Information Science Master’s Program.

Gouveia worked with the client liaison at Permanent to interview students and draft a contract. Morgan Schmidt was the successful candidate from a round of interviews. For three months, Schmidt inventoried, organized, and created content descriptions for previously scanned material, then published them for public access.

The newly digitized resources are just a fraction of the total holdings from the Center’s archives at Aliʻiōlani Hale. In the coming months and years, many more legal records, photographs, maps and blueprints, manuscripts, newspaper articles, and more will be digitized and added to the online portal. One upcoming digitization project includes processing the papers of former Hawaiʻi Chief Justices, including the late Chief Justice William S. Richardson.

While the Hawaiʻi State Archives and UH Mānoa libraries have collections related to historic material held at Aliʻiōlani Hale, most primary sources in this archive are found only at the Center.

For information on how to access material in person, please contact the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center’s curator at 808-539-4995.

Those who are interested in volunteering as a collections assistant may apply by sending a letter of interest describing skills and work history, highlighting any related experience with historic collections and/or education, to Collections@jhchawaii.net.

WARNING: This article contains personal opinions. 

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. 

Paper. I have been drowning in it for years.

Genealogists soon learn to collect every scrap of information possible. We collect copies of birth certificates, marriage records, death certificates, census entries, military pension applications, deeds, and much, much more. I don't know about you, but I have been collecting these bits of information as paper, mostly photocopies, for years. Over the past forty+ years, I have probably spent thousands of dollars in photocopying fees!

I now have a four-drawer filing cabinet behind me as I write these words and another four-drawer filing cabinet another room. I have book shelves that are groaning under the weight of (printed) books. Since I don't have enough room for all my books, many of them are stored in boxes, and I seem to never retrieve any of those books from storage. They lie there, year after year, gathering dust and mildew, providing information to no one.

Searching for information in hundreds of stored books is so time consuming and so impractical that it almost never gets done.

In addition to the thousands of dollars spent on photocopying fees, I have spent still more on filing cabinets, manila file folders, bookshelves, and more. Then there's the books. I hate to think what I have spent for books! Postage charges alone have been more than I care to think about.

Not only have I spent a lot of money, but I have also helped destroy the environment. I am sure I am personally responsible for the loss of numerous trees that were cut down to make the paper I used. In addition, I have consumed a lot of carbon and chemical products used in the production of toner for laser printers and for photocopy machines. Then there's the ink used in inkjet printers. 

So what do I do with these pieces of paper? I file them away and very rarely, if ever, look at them again. I spent a lot of money to acquire these pieces of paper, more money to file and organize them, and now I am spending still more money to store these pieces of paper. 

Why?

The remainder of this article is reserved for Plus Edition subscribers only. If you have a Plus Edition subscription, you may read the full article at: https://eogn.com/(*)-Plus-Edition-News-Articles/13389597. (A Plus Edition password is required to access that article.)

If you are not yet a Plus Edition subscriber, you can learn more about such subscriptions and even upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription immediately at https://eogn.com/page-18077. 

Genetic testing firm 23andMe will not go ahead with CEO Anne Wojcicki's take-private offer and has asked her to withdraw any plan to oppose any alternative deal, the company said on Friday.

In April, Wojcicki notified the company of her intention to make an offer and take the company private.

She followed it up with a non-binding proposal, disclosed in a regulatory filing on Wednesday, to acquire all outstanding shares of 23andMe not already owned by her or her affiliates for $0.40 per share.

A special committee formed by the company rejected the CEO's proposal as it saw the offer as insufficient and not in the best interests of the non-affiliated shareholders.

Wojcicki had indicated in her proposal that she was working with advisers and intended to begin speaking to potential partners and financing sources.

The committee in its response, opens new tab said it was prepared to provide her and potential investors additional time to submit a revised proposal in line with the company's expectation.

Other alternatives will be pursued to maximize value for shareholders, in the absence of a revised offer, the panel added.

23andMe, best known for its saliva-based test kits that offer users a glimpse into their genetic ancestry, went public in 2021.

On Wednesday, US Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act of 2024. The bipartisan legislation, up for consideration in the US Senate, aims to protect individuals from unauthorized AI-generated replicas of their voice or likeness. The NO FAKES Act would create legal recourse for people whose digital representations are created without consent. It would hold both individuals and companies liable for producing, hosting, or sharing these unauthorized digital replicas, including those created by generative AI. Due to generative AI technology that has become mainstream in the past two years, creating audio or image media fakes of people has become fairly trivial, with easy photorealistic video replicas likely next to arrive. [...]

According to Statcounter, Linux use hit another all-time high in July. For July 2024, the statistics website is showing Linux at 4.45%, climbing almost a half a percentage point from June's 4.05% high.

The following is an announcement from DigitalNC:

Anyone who has done any research with historic newspapers in North Carolina should send a thank you to the State Archives of North Carolina. Through the Archives’ decades-long efforts, newspapers from across the state have been painstakingly gathered and microfilmed, making copies available to researchers all over the world. The majority of the hundreds of thousands of microfilmed newspapers on our site were filmed by State Archives staff over the years. 

We are working with the State Archives over the next year to bring thousands of pages of newspapers dating from the early 19th century through the early 20th century to DigitalNC. For the most part, these won’t be available anywhere else online. Many are new titles for DigitalNC. Each month we’ll post a batch of around 20 titles. Note that for most of these papers, there will only be a handful of issues. 

This first month includes all of the issues in the entire group that were identified as Black newspapers. In addition, you’ll find papers from the white community from Elizabeth City, Jackson, Moyock, Murfreesboro, Potecasi, and Rich Square – Currituck, Hertford, Northampton, and Pasquotank Counties. We are excited about adding these to our site, and look forward to some truly hard-to-find additions!

Black Newspapers

• The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.) – two rare issues from 1946
• The Colored Industrial (Lincolnton, N.C.)* – issues from 1901, 1903
• The Metrolinian (Charlotte, N.C.)* – issues from 1971
• The Queen City Gazette (Charlotte, N.C.)* – one issue from 1964
• The Raleigh Independent (Raleigh, N.C.)* – one issue from 1920
• The Weekly Journal (Charlotte, N.C.)* – one issue from 1978
• Wilmington Journal [1945-1994] (Wilmington, N.C.)* – issues from 1952
• The Wilmington Herald [1894] (Wilmington, N.C.)* – one issue from 1894

White Papers from Currituck, Hertford, Northampton, and Pasquotank Counties

• The Daily Dixit (Elizabeth City, N.C.)* – one issue from 1887
• Daily Economist (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1905-06-21 issue
• The Weekly Economist (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1877-05-02 and 1877-05-16 issues
• Elizabeth City High School Student Newspaper* – issues from 1918
• The Elizabeth-City Gazette, and Public Advertiser (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1807-07-31, 1807-08-13, 1807-08-20, and 1807-12-31 issues
• The Elizabeth-City Star and North-Carolina Eastern Intelligencer (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1825-04-30 and 1908-04-15 issues
• The Great Issue (Elizabeth City, N.C.)* – issues from 1905
• The Independent (Elizabeth City, N.C.) – 1911-02-09, 1913-09-25, 1913-10-09, 1916-09-28 issues
• Murfreesboro Index (Murfreesboro, N.C.) – 1903-10-23 and 1903-11-06 issues
• Northampton Progress (Jackson, N.C.)* – issues from 1919, 1920
• The Picayune (Moyock, N.C.)* – issues from 1923-1925
• Roanoke Patron (Potecasi, N.C.) – 1886-04-01, 1887-03-15, 1891-09-17 issues
• The Northampton County Times-News (Rich Square and Jackson, N.C.) – 1927-11-03 issue

* – Titles new to DigitalNC

The following is a press release issued by the Arizona State Library,:

As part of a two-year National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant, the State of Arizona Research Library (StARL), a branch of the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records in collaboration with the University of Arizona Libraries (UAL) have completed the digitization of 50 historical newspapers published in Arizona. The NDNP is a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Library of Congress.
With the input of an advisory board, the 50 historical newspapers—which focus on a variety of social and economic areas of Arizona’s history—are now available to the public for free on Chronicling America.  
 
This grant cycle has seen the inclusion of publications from several Arizona cities for the first time. Jerome and Willcox will now be represented in Chronicling America with the addition of several years of The Jerome Chronicle, Arizona Mining News, Sulphur Valley News, Arizona Range News, and more. Newspapers from communities that have been historically underrepresented are also highlighted. 
 
Spanish-language publications such as Justicia, El Machete, and additional years of El Tucsonense are available online. Las Dos Repúblicas, Arizona’s first known Spanish-language newspaper from 1877, is also included. 
 
Additional issues of the Arizona Gleam, The Buffalo, The Arizona Times, and other publications are expanding the representation of Black communities in Chronicling America. 
The grant project directors, Asa Espanto, Newspaper Librarian at StARL, and Mary Feeney, News Research Librarian at UAL, are conducting two community outreach events in August to highlight some of the recently digitized newspapers included in this grant cycle. 
 
Both events are free and open to the public: 
Thursday, August 8, 5 PM
Burton Barr Library, Phoenix, AZ
 
Tuesday, August 13, 5:30 PM 
Copper Queen Library, Bisbee, AZ
 
More information
Visit Chronicling America to view the Arizona historical newspapers.  
National Endowment for the Humanities grant highlights diversity, representation in digitized newspapers
 
Contacts
Asa Espanto, aespanto@azlibrary.gov  
Mary Feeney, mfeeney@arizona.edu
 
About the National Endowment for the Humanities
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov
 
About the Arizona State Library
A division of the Secretary of State, the State Library of Arizona provides trustworthy, reliable, and authoritative information and offers research assistance, online access, training, and meeting spaces. To learn more, visit www.azlibrary.gov
 
About the University of Arizona Libraries
Established in 1891, the University of Arizona Libraries are enterprising partners in advancing the University of Arizona’s priorities. We cultivate an environment that promotes inquiry, creative endeavor, scholarly communication, and lifelong learning. Our resources, services and expertise enrich the lives of Arizonans, and contribute to an expanding global academic community. For more information, visit lib.arizona.edu
 

The following is a press release issued by the North Carolina State University:

The following is a press release issued by the U.S. Natonal Archives and Records Administration:

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.