Here's the bottom line summary of this article: Archival-grade optical discs like M-DISC promise to last hundreds or even thousands of years. Tape storage lasts for a few decades, while hard drives and Solid-State Disks (SSDs) can be trusted for 5-10 years, but it all depends on how well you treat and store them.

Ok, now that you know the bottom line, you might want to learn a few details to see how to extend the life of your disk drives for as long as possible.

Perhaps you might need to hold onto data for a long time. Maybe you have some old documents or records that you’d like to pass down to future generations, or perhaps you need to keep financial records and other necessary paperwork around for legal reasons. Even if you’re trying to preserve your personal memories, like photos or videos, you’ll need to figure out a way to store all that stuff.

You could choose high-quality paper or film designed to last a long time. However, it will have to be acid-free paper. Did you know that most paper sold today contains acids? 

According to Wikipedia:

"Acid-free paper is paper that, if infused in water, yields a neutral or basic pH (7 or slightly greater). It can be made from any cellulose fiber as long as the active acid pulp is eliminated during processing. It is also lignin- and sulfur-free. Acid-free paper addresses the problem of preserving documents and preserving artwork for long periods."

Acid-free paper is a MUST if you want to save that paper for many years. There are only two problems with acid-free paper: (1.) it is difficult to find and (2.) it is expensive.

If you really want to use paper, what you need is Alkaline paper.

Alkaline paper has a life expectancy of over 1,000 years for the best paper and 500 years for average grades. Those numbers assume that the alkaline paper is storred in a facility with rigid temperature and humidity controls. Storing the paper in that environment will be expensive over a period of many years. 

The making of alkaline paper has several other advantages in addition to the preservation benefits afforded to the publications and documents printed on it. Unfortunately, alkaline paper is even more difficult to find and even more expensive than acid-free paper.

Then there is the issue of inks.

The so-called ink used in today's inkjet and laser printers isn't really ink at all. 

In the case of laser printers, the "ink" called toner (powdered carbon or other chemicals) is used. A laser beam is projected onto a drum. Photoconductivity allows the charged electrons to fall away from the areas exposed to light. Powdered ink (toner) particles are then electrostatically attracted to the charged areas of the drum that have not been laser-beamed.

Inkjet printing works by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. An inkjet nozzle sprays ink in the size of about 0.003 inches.Fluids with surface tension may be water based, wax or oil based and even melted metal alloys.

The problem with both laser and inkjet printers involves fading. In both cases, the "ink" will start to fade within a very few years. It probably will become unreadable within less than 100 years. In most cases, it will fade in much less than 100 years.

In short, if you want the printed paper to last for more than 100 years, you cannot print it on inkjet or laser printers. What eise is there? Ink. Good, old-fashioned India ink. Applied with a fountain pen. 

NOTE: Don't even get me started with the expected lifespan of ballpoint pens!

So the bottom line is that if you want to preserve information for many years, it is not cost-effective for private individuals to publish on paper. So what else is there? Either on clay tablets, copper tablets, or electronically.

I will ignore clay tablets and copper tablets in this article. That leaves only one practical method: disk drives.

Publishing on Disk Drives

If you are thinking about storing digital data for the long term on disk drives, there are several challenges you should be aware of.

First, digital storage media like hard drives and Solid-State Disk Drives (SSDs) can degrade over time and eventually fail. (With one expensive exception I will describe later.) That means you must keep making new copies of long-term data before your storage devices fail.

Perhaps a bigger challenge is file format obsolescence. Some file formats may become outdated or incompatible with newer software as technology advances. That means even if your storage media survives, there may be no drives to read it, and even if there are, the details of the file formats you used to store that data might be lost.

On the other hand, every time you migrate your current data to a newer format to preserve it for a few more years, it might degrade in some way that won’t become apparent until someone tries to access it someday.

Hackers, malware, and natural disasters can all threaten your stored data, so it’s important to implement strong security measures to protect your information and to store the media in an environment that’s both safe for that media and offers long-term stability.In other words, make multiple copies and store each copy in a different place.

Perhaps a separate, but equally important, problem with file obsolesce is the issue of disk storage capacity. Only a few years ago, a hard disk drive capable of saving 100 megabytes of files was considered to be huge. Today, it is difficult or maybe even impossible to purchase a new disk drive with that limited about of storage space. 

Hard drives used in personal computers used to use the ST-506 or ST-412 interface. Today, those are no longer available, having been replaced mostly by IDE or ATA interfaces. 

If you save data today on some state-of-the-art disk drive will you or someone else be able to read it in 10 years? 50 years? 100 years?

The long-Term (but Expensive) Solution

In this rapidly-changing world it is difficult to predict where the technology will be in another 20 years. However, today's archival-grade optical discs, such as M-DISC, are designed specifically for long-term data storage. Unlike CDs and DVDs, they use a special type of data layer made of materials that are resistant to degradation over time, including UV light and moisture. Two factors are commonly responsible for “disc rot.” These discs can last for up to 1000 years or more—at least that’s what the various manufacturers claim. Obviously, it’s impossible to actually test this claim, but they can make an educated guess through testing.

You can learn more about M-DISC technology at: https://youtu.be/bQENbP8npsw

The big problem (today) is with disk drives capable of creating data on M-DISC. 

(NOTE: Don't confuse them with Blu-Ray drives. They are NOT the same thing!)

When preparing this article, I as unable to find a source for M-DISC drives. My suggestion is to start at https://www.mdisc.com/, the company that invented M-DISC technology and ask them for a source.

(NOTE 2: I happen to own an M-DISC drive but I certainly am not interested in selling it!)

Another Possible Solution

Perhaps a more effective solution is to not store your data on any sort of disk drive. A possible solution is waiting for you in the cloud. That will avoid all the problems with making sure the data remains readable.

Soting files in live storage in the cloud is available nowadays for modest prices per year. However, the main focus of this article is storing data for many years and those "modest" prices would soon add up to a rather significant price over the years.

In short, there is no cheap and easy solution that I know of with today's technologies.

So, what is the recommended procedure?

There are a number of options to choose from. However, the simplest and probably the cheapest solution has been in common use for quite a few years:make lots of copies top different hard drives and store the drives in different locations. Then, every few years, copy the data on the disk drives to new drives. Luckily, the price of disk drives has dropped like a rock in the past few years. This solution is not as expensive as it was just a few years ago. Thousands of data centers and even private individuals have been doing this for years and it has proven to be very reliable. 

The copy, distribute, and copy again method even has a name: Locks of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe, abbreviated as L.O.C.K.S.S. 

From help writing obituaries to texting with a simulation of a deceased loved one, the grief technology industry is on the rise. 

Carrie Rowell still misses the 7 a.m. phone calls from her father, who died six years ago.

He would use her nickname, "Toots," or ask, "Hey, babe, how's your morning going?"

"I would give anything to hear that again," Rowell said.

But interacting with a version of a departed loved one is now more accessible than ever, thanks to generative language models such as ChatGPT. Trained on a deceased relative's words — from a digital journal, videos or other content — a chatbot can reply to a prompt or question from a survivor with what it predicts the relative would say.

This might sound like the episode of the science-fiction series "Black Mirror" that explored a woman's use of technology to create a virtual version of her dead boyfriend, with disturbing implications. But this is the very real way technology is helping people deal — or maybe not deal — with death.

Funeral homes already are adding AI-powered obituary-writing services to the digital memorial webpages they create. An interactive app, HereAfter AI, lets a user preserve photos and memories for family members to access after the user has died. The Project December website offers to "simulate the dead" in a text-based conversation with anyone, "including someone who is no longer living."

You can read more in an article by Todd Nelson published in the Star Tribune web site at: https://tinyurl.com/54nf2p8z.

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

The newest technology in computers these days is called “cloud computing.” However,  many experienced computer users do not yet understand the term. In fact, "the cloud" can be different things to different people. I thought I would write a three-part article: the first part explains what the cloud is, and the second part will describe using the cloud for genealogy purposes. The third part will address some of the frequently-asked questions (FAQs) concerning the use of cloud computing.

A few years ago, Ancestry.com had outages with its RootsWeb/USGenWeb/WorldConnect web pages. Some users have declared, “So much for the cloud and trusting others with your data.” However, that statement shows a lack of familiarity with cloud computing. While Ancestry uses industrial grade computers as servers to deliver information on the World Wide Web, they obviously are were using cloud computing methods in those days for the affected services that suffered weeks of outage.  

NOTE: Most cloud-based services provide 99.999% or better uptime. An article some time ago in Network World at http://goo.gl/YQjLYQ states that “Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) recorded 2.41 hours of downtime across 20 outages in 2014, meaning it was up and running 99.9974% of the time.” The same article also states, “Perhaps even more eye-catching is the uptime of Google Cloud Platform’s storage service, which experienced 14 minutes of downtime in all of 2014, according to CloudHarmony. That’s good for a 99.9996 uptime percentage.” 

Such statistics are common for true cloud-based services running in multiple data centers. 

It is the intent of this article to reduce some of the confusion about the term “cloud computing.” 

Computers are marvelous things. We can sit at home with a desktop computer or use a laptop when traveling or even use a handheld computer while sitting in a city park or while riding a commuter train. We can watch YouTube videos, read and write email, check the latest news and weather reports, research a family tree, plot the best travel route to Poughkeepsie, or perform any of dozens of other tasks, regardless of our location. We can do this because we are connected to a monstrous collection of computers and computer accessories that include routers, switches, hubs, and miles and miles of cabling. 

In the traditional world of desktop applications, data is usually stored on a computer’s hard drive. In “the old days” of a few years ago, I could go on vacation and leave my computer at home but then could not access my email, photos, or any of my data. In the new world of cloud services, my email and all my data are safely and securely stored online, that is, in the cloud. I can get to it by using a web browser from any computer that’s connected to the Internet. Even better, that information is available to me essentially all the time. 

In many cases, I can even get to it from a so-called "smartphone," that is, a cellphone with a built-in computer that usually runs on an Android or Apple operating system.

The hardware that lets us compute anyplace on any device is invisible to us, and most of us do not understand how it all works. However, our computers, even our tiny cell phone "smartphones," are actually plugged into the collective power of thousands of computers that serve all this information to us from far-away computer systems distributed around the world. It’s almost like having a massive supercomputer at your beck and call, thanks to the Internet.

There may be hundreds of thousands of hardware boxes involved along with millions of services available on the Internet. This collection of hardware, software, and data is collectively called "the cloud." 

In fact, some people think that any web server that is available on the World Wide Web is part of “the cloud.” However, that impression is incorrect; a web server can be any computer, large or small, that serves up data to the web where people can see it. For instance, some people believe that the web server that is displaying this page to you from http://www.eogn.com/ is a single web server installed in one data center. If that web server stops working at some point, the web page you are reading right now will not be available to you.

Again, that is incorrect. The cloud changed all that.

Definitions are not rigidly defined. The term “cloud” can be taken to mean many different things. However, most data processing professionals will tell you that a single web server installed in a single data center does not qualify as a cloud-based service.

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/13225059

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. 

• New online database provides information about hundreds of Aboriginal children placed in Perth institutions from 1868 to 1920 
• Database launched during NAIDOC Week 
• Aboriginal History WA is dedicated to helping families trace their ancestral histories   

A free online resource will help Aboriginal families establish links to children sent to Perth orphanages and missions from 1868 to 1920. 

The Perth and Swan Orphanages and Mission Index is a searchable database holding information on children admitted to four institutions located in Perth and the Swan Valley.

Over the course of almost 50 years, about 300 children were removed from their families and placed within these institutions.

In Western Australia the practice of forced separation of Aboriginal children from their families began in the 1830s and was only stopped in the 1970s. 

Over this period, a framework of laws, practices and policies existed that saw as many as a third of Aboriginal children removed from their families – some were as young as two years old. These practices resulted in what is now known as the Stolen Generations. 

The Perth and Swan Orphanages and Mission Index is an initiative of the Department of Local Government Sport and Cultural Industries' (DLGSC) Aboriginal History WA unit (AHWA).

It has been painstakingly compiled from a range of historical sources including admission registers, microfilms, historical departmental files, death and burial records, and newspapers. It adds significantly to those records already made available by AHWA.

AHWA is dedicated to helping Aboriginal Western Australians trace their family histories through the provision of information and production of comprehensive genealogies. 

For more information, and to access the Perth and Swan Orphanages Mission Index, visit https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/aboriginal-culture/reconciliation-and-history-projects/perth-and-swan-orphanages-and-missions-name-index

I have written many times about the need for genealogists (and others) to make frequent backups. Now Oluwademilade Afolabi has published an article in the MakeUseOf web site that explains the differences of different kinds of backups.

If you are a bit confused about the different kinds of backups and the pros and cons of each, you might read the article at: https://www.makeuseof.com/ways-to-back-up-data/.

Tilda Wilson apparently interviewed Colleen Shogan, the (new) Archivist of the United States and published bits and pieces of the interview in thye NPR News web site. Here's a sample:

Shogan is the first woman ever appointed to be National Archivist. Her job is to make sure that the nation's history — through its documents — is preserved. The archives contain 13.5 billion records. Everything from the Constitution to the 19th Amendment to the papers your grandfather might have submitted to join the U.S. Army.

Shogan grew up in a working class neighborhood just outside Pittsburgh. She was a first generation college student. She went on to be a professor, then a Senate staffer, then deputy director of the Congressional Research Service. In her spare time, she devoured mystery novels.

"They're puzzles, and I like to solve puzzles," Shogan says. Not only solve them, but write them. Since 2015, Shogan has published eight murder mystery novels as part of her Washington Whodunit series. They're all set in places she's worked, with titles such as Larceny in the Library, Homicide in the House, and Stabbing in the Senate.

"She creates a world in each of her books," Shogan's editor, Jennifer McCord told NPR. McCord says the vivid settings drew her into Shogan's writing in the first place.

McCord won't be working with Shogan for a while, however. Shogan is holding off on writing murder novels while she's working as National Archivist. Perhaps the role is controversial enough without her killing off senators.

The functions of the National Archives received nationwide attention last fall. Just three days after Shogan was officially nominated, the FBI raided former President Trump's home in search of documents that should have been safely archived at the conclusion of his presidency.

The result was intense scrutiny during both Shogan's nomination hearings in November of 2022 and February of this year, though she couldn't be briefed on the details of the document cases until after she was confirmed in May.

You can read more at: https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-04/for-the-record-we-visit-colleen-shogan-the-first-woman-appointed-u-s-archivist.

Many shows are still awaiting their fates, and some have been waiting longer than others. One major NBC series, in particular, is still waiting for any news, despite being on the air for over 10 seasons. 

Genealogy docuseries Who Do You Think You Are? returned to NBC in the summer of 2022 for Season 11 after airing on TLC for Seasons 4-10. TVLine reports that the show is one that "cycles on and off," meaning that new episodes could still be made, but there would be big breaks in between seasons. As of May 2023, no new episodes were being made, and there is no indication that a new season is in the works.

In 2026, just three years from now, we will commemorate the United States Semiquincentennial and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The Library of Congress, along with other Federal agencies, will be taking part in this commemoration. We’ll be sharing our great collections and insights from our incredible staff, and inviting you to rediscover the Library of Congress for yourself.

In the lead-up to this milestone, the America250 Commission has launched America’s Invitation, a nationwide campaign for all Americans to share stories and hopes and dreams for our future.

America’s Invitation is an opportunity for Americans across the country, from every background, to take part in reflecting on our past and looking to the future by sharing their stories, and the things they love about America, as we continue to strive for “a more perfect union.”

Taking part in America’s Invitation is easy — visit stories.america250.org to share photos, videos, artwork, essays, songs, poems, or anything else that highlights what America means to you and how you hope to commemorate this milestone. This content may be showcased by America250 on its website, in videos, on social media, and more. Together, these contributions will highlight what makes America unique and ensure we are building a commemoration that includes all of us.

For some inspiration, you might enjoy this “From the Vaults” episode about the Dunlap Broadside, the first printing of the Declaration of Independence that was printed throughout the night of July 4, 1776. This is how the text of the Declaration was first sent out into the world:

And if you’re looking for more about the history of the Declaration of independence, we have you covered.

(You can watch the video at: https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-10171/?&embed=resources)

Over the next three years, America250 will continue to host commemorative events across the country. To learn more, visit America250.org, and follow the Commission on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

There is a great human interest story in the MyHeritage Blog that you might find interesting:

When Estela Ramos was 14 years old, she studied blood types in biology class, and realized something was amiss. She knew that her blood type was O, her mother’s was A, and her father’s was AB… and realized that, given the basic principles of heredity and the fact that blood type O is an expression of a dominant gene, it was impossible for the child of two people with the recessive A and AB blood type genes to have type O blood.

Maria Estela Ramos, Argentina

There was only one explanation: the parents who raised her were not her biological parents.

Estela questioned her parents, but didn’t get any concrete answers from them. She let it go, but couldn’t shake the sense of unease that she didn’t really know who she was.

When she mentioned the matter to her husband, he asked her a question that stopped her in her tracks:

“How can you live with a doubt like this?”

“When I became a mother, I asked again about my adoption,” Estela says. Her mother was not forthcoming, but as fate would have it, Estela overheard a comment a visitor made to her mother that confirmed what she already knew: Estela was not the biological daughter of the woman who raised her. “She looked at me and said, ‘This must be the girl my mother told me you adopted!'” says Estela.

“From that moment forward, my search didn’t stop,” says Estela. “I obtained my birth certificate and I researched every name and date so I could understand my story. This was not easy work, because though the indications were clear, the truth is a treasure you must pursue until you reach it. They were all half-truths, and that’s where the emotions work against you. Not only were we challenged by the environment, our society, our family, but also, we truth-seekers must really work to believe that we deserve to know the truth. We must know our origins.”

Estela tries DNA testing

You can read the full story at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/07/after-28-years-of-searching-i-solved-a-lifelong-mystery-and-found-my-brother-with-myheritage-dna/.

• Who: Plaintiff Ethan Shebesh filed a class action lawsuit against Ancestry.com and Geneanet SA.
• Why: Ancestry.com allegedly uses consumers’ identifying information for commercial purposes without their consent in violation of Illinois law.
• Where: The Ancestry.com class action lawsuit was filed in Illinois federal court.

An Ancestry.com class action lawsuit alleges the company uses consumers’ identifying information for commercial purposes without their consent in violation of the Illinois Right to Publicity Act (IRPA).

Plaintiff Ethan Shebesh filed the Ancestry.com class action lawsuit June 29 against Ancestry.com and Geneanet SA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ancestry.com.

The defendants own and operate www.geneanet.org, a genealogy website that allows users to share their genealogical information and connect with relatives and other Geneanet members.

“As with other genealogy websites, Geneanet allows its users to upload family history to build out an online family tree,” the Ancestry.com class action lawsuit explains. “The information uploaded may include relatives’ names, as well as documents, photographs, historical documents, news articles, and the like.”

Plaintiff says his full name appeared on Ancestry.com website to promote paid premium Geneanet memberships

Shebesh says he is one of 8 billion individuals identified on the Geneanet website. When searching for his last name, he discovered his full name and his spouse’s full name listed in the “free preview” search results.

When he clicked on his name on the free preview page, he was directed to a “Profile” page that included his full name, as well as the names of his parents, spouse, and half-siblings. The page also featured an orange “Become Premium” button urging users to sign up for a paid membership.

You can read more about this story in an article by Anne Bucher published in the TopClassActions web site at: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/privacy/ancestry-com-class-action-claims-website-shows-identifying-info-during-advertising-memberships/.