An article by Christina Hager published in the WBZ web site caught my eye this morning. I suspect it will also catch the eyes of many (human) genealogists:

"What's in a breed? Turns out pet owners are willing to shell out a lot to find out. Market research shows pet DNA testing is a more than $345 million industry on track to jump 85% by 2030.

"Michelle Leininger of Salem, NH, got a test kit that retails for about $80 after she adopted Jasmine, a rescue dog that looks like a German Shepherd. "Shepherds have a history of hip issues, so we wanted the DNA testing to know what her history was," said Leininger.

"The test came back with results showing not only German Shepherd, but also listed 14 other breeds. "How is she part...Chihuahua? You know, it just didn't make any sense," said Leininger.

"So, the WBZ-TV I-Team came with more tests from different companies to compare. All came back with some German Shepherd, but the percentages ranged from 65% to just 29%. Aside from that, the three companies showed a puzzling hodgepodge of other breeds. One included Great Pyrenees, another came back with Siberian Husky, another listed Korean Jindo, and the list goes on.

"Here's the biggest surprise: Leininger also collected a sample from her own human cheeks. When the I-Team sent it in, the results listed her as 28% Bulldog, 40% Border Collie, and 32% Cane Corso. 'Some people might agree,' she joked, but added that she wouldn't bother ever testing one of her pets again. 'I wouldn't waste the money,' she said."

You can read more in the article at: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/i-team-accurate-pet-dog-dna-testing-human/.

Here is a list of all of this week's articles, all of them available here at https://eogn.com:                                 

Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. and the Oklahoma Historical Society have come to an agreement permitting OHS to place tens of thousands of editions of The Edmond Sun archives on its Gateway to Oklahoma History website.

The Edmond Sun was the oldest publishing paper in Oklahoma at the time it closed in May 2020 and its website was taken down. The newspaper’s first issue published in July 1889, 18 years before Oklahoma statehood.

“I am very happy that the Oklahoma Historical Society and CNHI were able to come to an agreement regarding the placement of The Edmond Sun archives on the Gateway to Oklahoma History website,” said Trait Thompson, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. “CNHI recognized the value of The Edmond Sun to the historical record of Oklahoma and negotiated with the OHS in good faith.”

Prior to the agreement, OHS was only permitted to digitize issues of The Edmond Sun that published before 1964 under federal copyright law. But with approval from CNHI, all issues of The Edmond Sun can now be placed on the website for public access.

You can read more in an article by Joe Tomlinson published in the NonDoc web site at: https://tinyurl.com/3xfdsn53.

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

This is Part #1 of a 2-part series.

We often take email for granted these days. For many people, it is a process of writing a quick note, reading a return note, clicking DELETE, and then moving on. However, is deleting a good idea? I can think of at least two reasons why we might want to archive all our email messages, both sent and received. One reason is genealogy-related, the other is not.

Did you inherit family heirlooms of love letters great-grandfather sent to great-grandmother during the war? Or perhaps other letters written for other purposes? While love letters are always great for sentimental reasons, other letters, even business correspondence, can offer great insights into the lives of our ancestors. Will your descendants have similar feelings about the correspondence that you write?

Of course, nowadays the art of writing letters on paper, sealing them into an envelope, and mailing them is quickly becoming lost. Future genealogists probably will not have letters available from the early twenty-first century in the same manner that we save letters from earlier times. Today, email is the preferred method of correspondence. Are you going to deny your descendants access to your correspondence?

Another reason for saving email messages is for you to retrieve such messages in the future. I have saved all my email messages for years and frequently refer to past messages. What was Aunt Mildred's telephone number? How about remembering a relative's birthday? Then again, how about that message that a distant cousin sent about his or her findings in the family tree? If you keep an archive of all your past messages, finding that information again is trivial.

Luckily, archiving all your messages is easy to do. You probably don't even need to change your email address or the service you presently use. 

NOTE: I save all "meaningful" messages. I don't save spam mail, and I delete the quick replies, such as, "Got it. Thanks for the info." I also delete the email messages from companies that say, “We are having a sale this weekend.” I consider those to be semi-spam and not worth saving.

However, any longer messages in the past few years that contained any meaningful information are now saved on my hard drive with backup copies saved in “the cloud” for safety. Even better, I can find any words or phrases inside any past email message within seconds.

I will separate the remainder of this article into two sections: (1.) short-term archiving and (2.) long-term archiving. In this case, "short-term archiving" means "for a few years." I want to save all my meaningful email messages for a few years in such a manner that I can refer back to information conveniently at any time. I typically care about information sent within the past five years or so. 

"Long term archiving" is more for the purpose of preserving information for future generations. In this case, I am thinking about practical methods of saving email messages for ten years or perhaps even 100 years or longer. I also need to make those messages available to others in a format that can be accessed for many years into the future.

Let's look at "short-term archiving" first.

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/13258099.

More than 6,000 pages of Grand Jury Presentments and Query Books have been digitised by Kildare County Archives. They are now online, free to download in pdf format and to explore to your heart's content. 

The Grand Jury system of local government was set up in the medieval period. It was initially concerned with the administration of justice, and juries were made up of wealthy local landowners. The Courts sat just twice a year, at the spring and summer assizes. By the 18th and 19th centuries, the Grand Jury had taken on more responsibilities including the management and maintenance of hospitals, asylums, dispensaries, gaols and some other public buildings, and the provision of roads.

The books contain the names of many individuals: contractors taking on public works, medical staff and those caring for deserted children. 

You can read more in the irishgenealogynews web site at: https://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2023/09/county-kildares-grand-jury-presentment.html. 

The following is a press release written by FamilySearch:

People of all ages will want to take advantage of the new, free Logan Utah FamilySearch Center to make fun personal and family discoveries. The center is located at 165 East 2200 North in North Logan, Utah. It offers some of FamilySearch’s signature interactive discovery experiences found only at select facilities worldwide. The center will open Monday, September 25, but a public open house will be held Friday, September 22, 1–5 pm, and Saturday, September 23, 9:30 am–3 pm. The center is free to the public.

Logan FamilySearch Center Services

Individuals, families, youth, and special interest groups will enjoy discovering their family history and stories together using 13 discovery stations with fun, interactive experiences: All About Me, Compare-a-Face, Picture My Heritage, My Famous Relatives, and Where I Come From. There is also a recording room, Record My Story, to digitally capture personal and family memories on video for posterity’s sake.

The center offers 33 patron computers, plus a computer learning lab that can support groups of up to 18 persons. In addition to free monthly classes, a staff of local volunteers is ready and willing to make your visit a success. A play area for small children is well-situated with 3 workstations so parents can explore their family history without leaving their children unattended. There’s even an open kitchen and snack area for guests who want to make an all-day excursion out of their visit.

If you have family memories on old photos, slides, negatives, film, videos, and reel-to-reels, the center has the equipment needed to convert those to digital so you can preserve and easily share them online or on a portable hard drive.

Visitors are sure to have quick successes, capitalizing on FamilySearch’s vast historical resources and free access to premium online genealogy services.

Prepare for Your Visit

For the best-personalized experiences, plan ahead. Create a free FamilySearch Account online. (Don’t forget the log-in and password you create!) Add what you know about your family in the FamilySearch Family Tree.

Introduce your family and friends to a lifetime of family discovery experiences. Plan a visit soon to the Logan Utah FamilySearch Center.

Logan Utah FamilySearch Center Details

Address: 165 East 2200 North, North Logan, Utah, 84341

Phone: 1-435-755-5594

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 5,000 FamilySearch centers in 129 countries, including the main FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

An epic legal affair involving artworks looted by the Nazi regime drew to a close on Wednesday in Lower Manhattan, where the works were handed over to the descendants of a Jewish collector who was murdered during the Holocaust.

The artworks, by the renowned Austrian artist Egon Schiele, were forcibly taken from Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer who was killed in 1941 at Dachau concentration camp, according to descendants of the artist as well as a pivotal court ruling.

The pieces ended up, over the span of many decades, at various museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library, both in New York, eventually becoming the subject of a series of federal and state court cases.

“I don’t think it’s an overstatement. Today is historic and groundbreaking,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at whose office the handover ceremony took place and which helped orchestrate the return. “We are returning these beautiful works, these drawings, to their rightful home. To their family.”

You can read more in an article by Arun Venugopal published in the gothamist web site at: https://gothamist.com/news/7-artworks-seized-by-nazis-returned-to-descendants-in-ny. 

There are certain standards that are a part of every American Football contest.

One is the goalposts. Another is the kickoff. Quite another is the passing game. Players are protected head to knee with padding. And just about every play begins with both sides of the ball getting into a huddle.

Why do players gather together like that? Where did this originate? Why are there different styles of huddles? Is there a connection to genealogy?

You can read a rather lengthy and explanatory article written by Barry Shuck published in the dawgsbynature web site at: https://www.dawgsbynature.com/2023/9/20/23863651/genealogy-in-american-football-the-huddle.

Here is an interesting article written by: Bryan Cockfield and published in the Hackaday web site:

Time is almost up for magnetic storage from the 80s and 90s. Various physical limitations in storage methods from this era are conspiring to slowly degrade the data stored on things like tape, floppy disks, and hard disk drives, and after several decades data may not be recoverable anymore. It’s always worth trying to back it up, though, especially if you have something on your hands like critical evidence or court records on a nearly 50-year-old floppy disk last written to in 1993 using a DEC PDP-11.

This project all started when an investigation unit in Maryland approached the Bloop Museum with a request to use their antique computer resources to decode the information on a 5.25″ floppy disk. Even finding a floppy disk drive of this size is a difficult task, but this was further compounded not just by the age of the disk but that the data wasn’t encoded in the expected format. Using a GreaseWeazle controlled by a Raspberry Pi, they generated an audio file from the data on the disk to capture all available data, and then used that to work backwards to get to the usable information.

You can read more at: https://hackaday.com/2023/09/15/preserving-floppy-disks/. 

The following is a press release written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists:

The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) will host five live webinars, free and available to the public, as this year’s Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series on 20 October 2023. The hour-long webinars begin at 9:30 a.m. MDT (11:30 a.m. EDT and 4:30 p.m. GMT) and continue throughout the day. Five leading genealogists will speak on topics such as meeting the Genealogical Proof Standard, verifying genealogical stories, and using DNA evidence. The webinars are part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and are presented in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars. 

The lecture series is presented annually in memory of BCG’s former trustee and vice president, Joy Reisinger, who began this lecture series for Family History Library staff during BCG’s fall board meetings. Joy was an advocate for open records access, a lecturer on research methods, and an expert on Canadian resources, especially those of Quebec.

The lecture series will be in-person and live streamed. To attend in person, it is being held in Classrooms B and C on the main floor of the FamilySearch Library on Friday, 20 October 2023. To view the live stream webinar presented in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars, registration is available at http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=8481.

Schedule:

9:30 a.m. MDT. "Deconstructing Family Stories: Are They Fact, Fiction, or a Little of Both," Barbara Vines Little, CG

We all have them—family stories—from Indian princesses and three brothers who came to America to “We're related to Benjamin Franklin.” Some are blatantly false; others wishful thinking. But others may be true or partly true. Discarding even the most outrageous without research is a mistake.  Finding the clues in family stories requires careful and thorough research, but that kernel of truth can be worth it.

10:45 a.m. MDT. "Lineage of Land: Tracing Property Without Recorded Deeds,” Shannon Green, CG

This case study traces a piece of property for two hundred years, from the Native Americans to the Dutch, to the English, and through fourteen members of the Hicks family over five generations. Transfer of title occurs through various instruments, including patents, unrecorded deeds, inheritance, escheatment, private laws, entails, deeds of lease and release, life estates, and coverture. Tracing the lineage of the property elucidates family relationships that were otherwise forgotten.  

1:30 p.m. MDT. "The Many Wives of Howard William Lowe: Working with Social History to Glean Genealogical Insights," Gary Ball-Kilbourne, CG

Genealogists are expected to conduct research not just reasonably exhaustively but also broadly. Understanding the social milieu of the specific time and place within which an individual lived is an essential element of broad research. A case study focusing on an early twentieth-century blue-collar worker in western Minnesota and his several wives illustrates how social history provides insights illuminating their lives.

2:45 p.m. MDT. "Assumptions: Problem–Solving Friend or Foe?" Jennifer Zinck, CG

Do you have an unsolved research problem? Have you critically examined assumptions made during the research process? Some assumptions are valid, or even fundamental, but incorrect or misguided assumptions can act as mortar for genealogical brick walls. Learn to recognize, categorize, and address various types of assumptions to form sound genealogical conclusions.

4:00 p.m. MDT. "DNA Analysis Methodology: Defeat the Genealogy Gremlin with Pedigree Evaluation, Mitigation, and Reasoning," Karen Stanbary, CG

Learn the tried-and-true methodology to defeat the Genealogy Gremlin and achieve accurate results using DNA for genealogy. This lecture discusses the evaluation of match pedigrees to identify potential snafus and demonstrates mitigation strategies to address the problem. Don’t let researcher confirmation bias pollute your family trees!

The words Certified Genealogist and its acronym, CG, are registered certification marks, and the designations Certified Genealogical Lecturer and its acronym, CGL, are service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists®, used under license by board certificants after periodic evaluation.