A project that was over two years in the making with the city of Jefferson has come to fruition about a data website.

City Administrator Scott Peterson says all gravesites at the city cemetery are now available online. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio people can search by name to see if someone is buried in the city cemetery, along with some information about that individual. Peterson explains why the city continued to pursue this endeavor.

“If you’re looking for a relative and you think that they may be buried in Jefferson, it’s pretty easy to just hop on the computer and do a search that way. Also, genealogy is of course a big pastime and folks could utilize this then for genealogy. But the biggest thing, I think, is you put the name in there and it’s going to quickly tell you where they’re buried. So you can physically go (and) walk right out to the tombstone.”       

Finance Officer Sarah Morlan says Cemetery Information Management Systems (CIMS) is the company that the city is working with for this service. She points out an added feature is the availability of additional burial sites for purchase in the cemetery because lots of people request to be buried near their family members. 

Morlan says they used a portion of their funding from Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation to initially purchase the service and pay an annual fee of $2,900. Click here to access the website.

Several European countries are betting on open-source software. In the United States, eh, not so much. In the latest news from across the Atlantic, Switzerland has taken a major step forward with its "Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Government Tasks" (EMBAG). This groundbreaking legislation mandates using open-source software (OSS) in the public sector.

This new law requires all public bodies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them unless third-party rights or security concerns prevent it. This "public money, public code" approach aims to enhance government operations' transparency, security, and efficiency.

Making this move wasn't easy. It began in 2011 when the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published its court application, Open Justitia, under an OSS license. The proprietary legal software company Weblaw wasn't happy about this. There were heated political and legal fights for more than a decade. Finally, the EMBAG was passed in 2023. Now, the law not only allows the release of OSS by the Swiss government or its contractors, but also requires the code to be released under an open-source license "unless the rights of third parties or security-related reasons would exclude or restrict this."

Professor Dr. Matthias Stürmer, head of the Institute for Public Sector Transformation at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, led the fight for this law. He hailed it as "a great opportunity for government, the IT industry, and society." Stürmer believes everyone will benefit from this regulation, as it reduces vendor lock-in for the public sector, allows companies to expand their digital business solutions, and potentially leads to reduced IT costs and improved services for taxpayers.

Several European countries are betting on open-source software. In the United States, eh, not so much. In the latest news from across the Atlantic, Switzerland has taken a major step forward with its "Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Government Tasks" (EMBAG). This groundbreaking legislation mandates using open-source software (OSS) in the public sector.

This new law requires all public bodies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them unless third-party rights or security concerns prevent it. This "public money, public code" approach aims to enhance government operations' transparency, security, and efficiency.

Making this move wasn't easy. It began in 2011 when the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published its court application, Open Justitia, under an OSS license. The proprietary legal software company Weblaw wasn't happy about this. There were heated political and legal fights for more than a decade. Finally, the EMBAG was passed in 2023. Now, the law not only allows the release of OSS by the Swiss government or its contractors, but also requires the code to be released under an open-source license "unless the rights of third parties or security-related reasons would exclude or restrict this."

Professor Dr. Matthias Stürmer, head of the Institute for Public Sector Transformation at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, led the fight for this law. He hailed it as "a great opportunity for government, the IT industry, and society." Stürmer believes everyone will benefit from this regulation, as it reduces vendor lock-in for the public sector, allows companies to expand their digital business solutions, and potentially leads to reduced IT costs and improved services for taxpayers.

Apple announced on Wednesday that Apple Maps is now available on the web via a public beta, which means you can now access the service directly from your browser. The launch puts Apple Maps in direct competition with Google Maps, which has long been available on the web.

Maps on the web is accessible in English and is compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, as well as Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs. Apple plans to bring support for additional languages, browsers and platforms in the future.

Apple Maps on the web works like it does on the mobile app. You can get driving and walking directions; order food from the Maps place card; browse curated guides and reviews; and more. Apple plans to bring additional functionality, like its 360-degree panoramic views “Look Around” feature, to the web version in the coming months.

Apple notes that developers can link out to Maps on the web, allowing their users to get driving directions, see detailed place information, and more.

The launch of the web version of Apple Maps comes 12 years after Apple launched the service on the iPhone. By expanding the availability of Apple Maps, the company is seeking to reach more users and take on Google Maps, which has largely been the go-to place for maps on the web.

There are new additions from Powys to Pembridge for you to explore. 

We've added 39,181 burial records this Findmypast Friday, updating two existing indexes - the National Burial Index for England & Wales and the Greater London Burial Index - with transcriptions from Herefordshire, London and the Welsh county of Powys. 

These essential new records make building the English and Welsh branches of your family tree easier than ever. We've also added over 360,000 pages to our newspaper collection.

National Burial Index For England & Wales - Herefordshire

We updated our National Burial Index for England & Wales records this week, adding 17,656 records from the English county of Herefordshire. 

Map of Herefordshire, c.1742.

These useful new transcriptions cover 230 years, so if your ancestor was buried in Herefordshire between 1582 and 1812, their name may just appear. 

National Burial Index For England & Wales - Powys

But that's not it for the National Burial Index for England & Wales. We also added 21,174 burial records from Powys in Wales. These new additions span from 1513 to 1851.

Greater London Burial Index

To round off our trio of burial record updates we have 351 additions to the Greater London Burial Index. These new records are from the Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith and cover 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. 

These new records may reveal key information about the deaths of ancestors who lived in the capital during either of the world wars. 

New pages from Shropshire to Sheffield

366,562 brand new pages were added to our newspaper collection this Findmypast Friday, bringing our total page count up to a mind-boggling 81 million. 

Two new titles - the Banbridge Leader and the Shropshire Star - joined the archive. We also updated 15 of our existing publications, with new pages from across England and Scotland. 

Banbridge Leader, 18 January 1995.

Here's everything we've added to our newspaper collection this Findmypast Friday. 

New titles:

• Banbridge Leader, 1995-1999, 2001
• Shropshire Star, 1993-1995, 1997-1998, 2002-2003

Updated titles:

• Aberdeen Evening Express, 2000-2003
• Aberdeen Press and Journal, 2000-2001
• Banbury Guardian, 2003
• Barnoldswick & Earby Times, 1983, 1990, 1998
• Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 1998, 2003
• Chorley Guardian, 1990, 1992
• Crawley and District Observer, 1993, 2002
• Derbyshire Times, 1990
• Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 1997-1998, 2002
• Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 1990
• Sheffield Independent, 1924-1925, 1932
• Shields Daily Gazette, 1998, 2001
• St. Andrews Citizen, 1997
• Sussex Express, 1990
• Worthing Herald, 1975-1977, 1996-1997, 2000-2001, 2003

Explore the past with Historical British Newspapers

Would you like to discover the rich tapestry of Britain's history through old newspapers? Whether you're a history lover or a genealogy enthusiast, our new Facebook community is a space where you can immerse yourself in the captivating world of Britain's printed history.

Join the group

Join us today to explore and celebrate the fascinating stories that have shaped our nation.

A former British soldier living in Germany has had his 50th birthday wish come true after being reunited with his biological mother in Ireland.

Mark Balls, now 53, was adopted as a baby and was “raised well” by his adoptive parents in London.

He was told by his adoptive father that he was adopted when he was 10-years-old – but, out of respect for the man and woman who raised him, he chose not to pursue his biological family until after his adoptive parents had died.

Mr Balls, who has six children and now lives in Paderborn in Germany, said that while he knew some information about his biological mother, he could only “get so far”.

In the run up to his 50th birthday, his daughters asked him what he would like.

He said: “I told them how far I got with my search and that maybe – because they’re a bit more media savvy than I am – I asked if they could find out more?”

They conducted their own research but were unsuccessful.

His daughter Amanda then decided to give him a gift of a MyHeritage DNA test which would ultimately set him on a path that would finally see him connect with his Irish family.

“The way I understood it is that if I do the DNA test and there’s other people with a close DNA match to me, they might have information on where my mother would be.”

The mystery was not immediately solved but the results provided Mr Balls with a path to follow.

“I got the results and there were a couple of close connections. So I sent a few emails to people who unfortunately couldn’t help me.

“Time went by and there was a new match, with someone who had done a test and had a 10% match with me.

“I sent her a message and told her I was looking for my birth mother and it turned out her dad’s name was Condon – the same surname as my birth mother’s maiden name – and that he had a sister called Phyllis.”

Through a complicated chain of messages involving his newly discovered cousin in Greece as well as other relatives in Australia and Reading, Mr Balls eventually received an email to say that Phyllis O’Neill was his mother – and that he had two blood brothers in Limerick, Ireland.

“I was in work when I checked my emails. I got all choked up.”

Mr Balls’ mother was 18 and living in Hampstead, London when she gave birth to him

You can read more in an article in the LimerickLive web site at: https://bit.ly/3LLXR8h.

The following is a press release written by TheGenealogist:

TheGenealogist is delighted to announce the release of a comprehensive collection of 1930-35 directories. This addition features 3.5 million individuals, providing genealogy enthusiasts with an unparalleled opportunity to trace their ancestors and explore family histories during the first half of this transformative decade of the 1930s.

The newly available directories offer information on individuals, businesses, and localities, making it easier than ever to uncover the lives of your ancestors. 

Lyndhurst High Street can be found in Kelly's Directory of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, 1931

Key Features and Benefits:

• Rich Detail and Coverage: With over 3.5 million listings, these directories provide details about individuals' professions, addresses, and local businesses, offering a snapshot of life in the first half of the 1930s.

• Geographical Diversity: The collection covers various regions, including Sussex, Warwickshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorsetshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Westmorland, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and many more, extending even to the Channel Islands, Malta and New Zealand.

• Enhanced Research Capabilities: Researchers can delve into trade directories and phone books to uncover ancestors' occupations, residences, and social engagements, providing a holistic view of their lives.

Why the 1930s Matter:

The 1930s, also known as the Great Slump, was a period of economic and social upheaval. Understanding how your ancestors navigated these challenging times can provide profound insights into your family's resilience and adaptability. These directories are a treasure trove for anyone looking to connect with their past and understand their heritage in the context of broader historical events.

Supporting Your Journey:

TheGenealogist is committed to making your research journey as smooth and rewarding as possible. Our platform offers a suite of tools and resources, including expert articles, video tutorials, and a dedicated customer support team, ensuring that users can effectively use these newly released directories.

Read TheGenealogist’s article, The Unlikely Hero of the Track and Battlefield:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2024/shooting-for-gold-and-glory-the-unstoppable-philip-neame-7532/

To celebrate this latest release, TheGenealogist is offering its 12 months Diamond Package for just £99.95 – that’s over £40 off!

To find out more and claim the offer, visit: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/MGBDIR724

Expires on 26th October 2024.

This offer includes a lifetime discount! Your subscription will renew at with £20 off every year you stay with us.

This includes the following:-
Subscription to Discover Your Ancestors Online Magazine (Worth £24.99

Directories included in this release are:

• Kelly's Directory of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, 1931

• Kelly's Directory of Bournemouth, Poole, Parkstone, Christchurch &c., 1932

• Kelly's Directory of Brighton and Hove, 1932

• Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire, 1933

• Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, 1932

• Kelly's Directory of Devonshire and Cornwall, 1930

• Kelly's Directory of Dorsetshire, 1931

• Kelly's Directory of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, 1931

• Kelly's Directory of Hertfordshire, 1933

• Kelly's Directory of Ipswich and Neighbourhood, 1930

• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1930

• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1934

• Kelly's Directory of Kilburn Willesden, 1933

• Kelly's Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1932

• Kelly's Directory of Norfolk and Suffolk, 1933

• Kelly's Directory of Putney & Roehampton, 1930

• Kelly's Directory of Somersetshire, Gloucestershire & the City of Bristol, 1931

• Kelly's Directory of Suffolk, 1933

• Kelly's Directory of Sussex, Chichester, Selsey and Neighbourhood, 1934

• Kelly's Directory of the Channel Islands, 1931

• Kelly's Directory of Warwick, Leamington Spa, Stratford-On-Avon and Kenilworth, 1932

• Kelly's Directory of Warwickshire, 1932

• Kelly's Directory of Westmorland, 1934

• Kelly's Directory of Wiltshire, 1931

• Malta Telephone Directory, 1933

• New Zealand Post Office Directory, 1934

• Nottingham, Leicester and Derby Telephone Directory, 1934

• Nottingham, Lincoln, Peterborough and Districts Telephone Directory, 1933

• Ward's Directory of Whitley Bay, Tynemouth, North and South Shields, Jarrow, Wallsend, Gosforth, Newcastle-on-Tyne and Adjacent Villages, 1934

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, which puts 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 and Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

Join us for a full day of genealogy presentations and exhibitors at the 2024 Genealogy and Local History Fair!  Our theme is At the Crossroads of America: Westward Migration and Family History, where we will examine where our ancestors went after they arrived in the United States and how they got there.

Details

Registration is not required, but is preferred.  If you are an Indiana librarian who would like to receive 3 LEUs for attending, we ask that you please register for recordkeeping purposes.

Parking validation will be available for attendees who park in the Senate Avenue parking garage directly across from the library and bring their ticket in for validation.

For questions, or to register as an exhibitor, please email the Genealogy Division at genmail@library.in.gov.

Sessions

Eleanor Brinsko will present "Westward Ho: Migrations Methods of the United States" -- Family history researchers of non-Indigenous peoples focus on how their ancestors arrived on American soil, but how did they get to their chosen place of settlement? Was it intentional or coincidence? What modes of transportation were available? This presentation focuses on the people who have called the land called America “home” and the methods they chose to migrate across the country.

Annette Burke Lyttle will present "How Advertising Brought Our Ancestors to the Midwest" -- Business owners, land speculators, and communities wishing to grow all turned to various forms of advertising to entice people to migrate to the Midwestern territories and states. This presentation will examine how newspaper advertising, pamphlets, gazetteers, and books were aimed at prospective migrants from the eastern parts of the U.S. and prospective immigrants from Europe to get them to come and work, buy land, and settle in these sparsely-populated frontier areas.  We’ll look at what kinds of messages these ads used in order to make hard work and pioneer living seem attractive.

As well as "The National Road: America’s First Federal Highway" -- Built between 1811 and 1837, the National Road was the first federally-funded highway in America. Extending from Maryland to the frontier of Illinois, this migration route allowed thousands of people to settle in the Midwest. 

Speaker Details

Eleanor Brinsko is a genealogist who does European-American genealogy by looking at genealogical and social trends on both sides of the Atlantic. Eleanor has given lectures for the Wisconsin Historical Society and public libraries, genealogical societies, and family reunions around the United States. She taught a graduate-level course on genealogy at University of Wisconsin-Madison's iSchool and is also a contributor to the show “PBS’ Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.”

Annette Burke Lyttle, CG® owns Heritage Detective, LLC, providing professional genealogical services in research, education, and writing. She speaks on a variety of genealogical topics at the international, national, state, and local levels and loves helping people uncover and share their family stories. Annette is a course coordinator for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy and the British Institute. She is a published writer whose research interests include Quaker ancestors and ancestral migrations in the US. She is past president of the Association of Professional Genealogists and editor of The Florida Genealogist.

Date: Saturday, October 26, 2024

Time: 10:30 AM - 3:30 PM

Location: History Reference Room

It’s not often you’ll find Microsoft, Amazon and Meta in the same room, collaborating on the same goals. But that’s exactly what we have with the Overture Maps Foundation, an initiative to develop interoperable and open map data.

Launched in December 2022, the Overture Maps Foundation is an attempt to counter Google’s stranglehold on online mapping. The Linux Foundation-hosted outfit has been releasing early previews of its datasets over the past year, and the first beta incarnation arrived this April. But on Wednesday, we’re seeing the first formal fruits: The organization is launching a quartet of open data sets in general availability (GA).

For context, maps are essentially “layers” that can be tailored to many uses. The Overture Maps Foundation is today releasing buildings, constituting 2.3 billion building “footprints” globally; places, which includes some 54 million notable places of interest; divisions, which serves as a visual overlay denoting “boundaries” separating countries, regions, cities or neighborhoods; and base, which covers land and water features such as physical infrastructure (e.g., communication towers, piers and bridges).

The company’s other main dataset, transportation, will remain in beta for now. It is also debuting a new addresses dataset in alpha, which supports 200 million addresses across 14 countries.

While Microsoft, AWS and Meta are the highest-profile members of the Overture Maps Foundation, the core steering committee also counts location technology stalwart, TomTom, as a member. Other “general” and “contributor” members include Esri, Hyundai, Niantic and Tripadvisor. Google’s absence from the group is notable, albeit unsurprising given the ultimate goal of the project.

Collectively, the members are pooling myriad data sources, including open datasets from tangential projects such as OpenStreetMap and government sources, their own internal proprietary data, and even data from the main nemesis here, Google.

They can do that because although Google’s mapping data empire is mostly proprietary, it has released some datasets under an open access license, including Open Buildings, released back in 2021. As we can see from this map of the U.S. / Mexico border, the Overture Maps Foundation has used data from OpenStreetMap, Esri, Microsoft and Google.

It may sound simple to combine datasets, but the reality is somewhat different, as they generally don’t adhere to the same formats, structures and standards. So you might have two largely similar datasets with slightly different purposes that need to be meshed together to integrate their respective benefits. The process of bringing together such datasets is called conflation, and it can be a painstaking process of checking and de-duplication.

“One of the real challenges when you start combining data that’s coming from a lot of different places is, how do you know that this record of a building or an address or a place is the same as this other record?” explained Marc Prioleau, executive director of Overture Maps Foundation, in an interview with TechCrunch. “That seems kind of obvious, but people misspell things or use different names. They could also be slightly misaligned geographically. Conflation plays a big part in [fixing] this.”

You can read more at: https://tcrn.ch/4c1hUdV.

The ruthless killing of 13-year-old Sarah Ann Geer was a case that had gone cold for 42 years, but Cloverdale police used genetic tests to finally determine and arrest a 62-year-old suspect.

In the Sonoma County city of Cloverdale, some 85 miles north of San Francisco, there was a 1982 murder case of a teenager that had gone cold. Then-13-year-old Sarah Ann Geer was found dead in an alley, haveing been raped, strangled, and killed. The Cloverdale Police Department had a number of suspects, but no leads panned out, and the case went cold for four decades.

But that department reopened the case in 2021. They still had the decades-old semen samples to work with, and more modern “DNA genetic genealogy technology” at their disposal. And with that, SFGate reports the Cloverdale PD arrested 62-year-old James Unick of Willows, California on Monday, and charged him with Geer’s murder.

"Today represents a bittersweet victory for justice,” Cloverdale Police Chief Chris Parker said in  a statement. “While nothing can undo the pain inflicted upon the Geer family and our community, we can finally offer some solace in knowing that the perpetrator will be held accountable. This arrest is a testament to the dedication of our law enforcement agencies and the unwavering resolve of Cloverdale's citizens."

Per SFGate, Unick had actually been in police custody on an unrelated matter two years after Geer’s killing. In 1985, when he lived in Cloverdale and was 23 years old, he was involved in a hit-and-run, and led police on a high-speed chase before turning himself in and being arrested. It is not clear whether records obtained in that incident helped facilitate this arrest.

Regardless, Unick is now being held without bail in the Sonoma County Jail on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under 14 by force. His future court appearances have not been announced.