Monday in the United States is Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who died in our nation's service. The origins of this day of remembrance are in doubt, with more than two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War. 

Originally called Decoration Day, the holiday was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic: "The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land." 

It is believed that the end of May was chosen for the first Memorial Day because " flowers would be in bloom all over the country." 

The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York, in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). In 1971 Memorial Day was declared a national holiday to be held on the last Monday in May. In addition, several southern states have an additional, separate day for honoring their Confederate (Civil War) dead as follows:

Memorial Day is the perfect time to pause and remember our ancestors who fought in defense of their country. Now is the time to learn of the sacrifices, large and small, that they made so that we can all enjoy the freedoms we have today.

Here is a list of web sites that will help you learn about Memorial Day and our military heroes: 

A common misunderstanding for those who use a DNA test to search for ancestors and find an American Indian marker is that the test can't determine a specific tribe. "When someone takes a DNA test and they find a marker that indicates possible American Indian ancestry, the one thing you must keep in mind is that no DNA test – however sophisticated it may be or what degree of data they may have – can tell you the tribe," David Cornsilk said.

Cornsilk worked for 12 years with tribal enrollment at Cherokee Nation and has over 30 years of experience in genealogy research with his own company, Cherokee Genealogical Services.

The records of the Cherokee people extend back to the mid-1700s, said Cornsilk. The reason DNA evidence of Native American heritage is lacking is most tribes have not encouraged their members to take ethnicity DNA tests, Cornsilk said. "The reason is, we don't know if our information will be protected. Our privacy might be compromised. "We don't know how that information will be used. We have a mistrust of those kinds of entities because they are corporations and most of them – like 23andMe and Ancestry.com – are for entertainment purposes only."

They are not legitimate laboratories, Cornsilk said.

"Not all families do, but the mixed-blood families tend to have more records and better documentation further back, but once you hit [the year] 1800, it levels out and nearly all tribal members have virtually the same evidence of their heritage," Cornsilk said.

A common statement from folks who believe their families have Native blood, but can't find proof of it, is their ancestors didn't want to be listed on the Dawes or other rolls because they didn't want the government to know about them.

"There was no choice [but to be on the rolls]," Cornsilk said. "For the sake of argument, let's say that's true. Where are their brothers and sisters, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles?"

You can read more in an article by Lee Guthrie published in the tahlequahdailypress web site at: http://bit.ly/4bttRtn.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Srila Nayak as published in the Washington University in St. Louis University Libraries web site:

A new digital StoryMap project, Asia in St. Louis, traces the history and experiences of people of Chinese and Japanese descent in St. Louis, from the 1850s to the 1980s. Created by East Asian studies librarians and students at Washington University, Asia in St. Louis is an interactive, dynamic digital platform that combines maps, archival sources, photographs, and personal narratives. A unique, first-of-its-kind project on the subject, Asia in St. Louis helps us understand the locations and spaces in St. Louis that were a part of Asian American history in the region.

The project was inspired by a WashU spring 2022 course, Historical Method–Transregional History, taught by Uluğ Kuzuoğlu, assistant professor of history. “It is a learning platform for the public and the StoryMaps will also be used as instruction resources in writing classes,” said Joan Wang, East Asian and Chinese studies librarian, who led the project. Students in the College Writing course, Place & Perspective, will utilize the digital project to understand and write about the St Louis region. 

The StoryMaps offer a powerful approach to studying the geography and cultural history of St. Louis through the lives of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. The digital project is structured around four themes: Early Chinese and Chinese Americans in St. Louis; Historical Traces of Asian Americans in St. Louis; the arrival of Japanese Americans from World War II internment camps; and Asian American Civil Rights.

The Toronto Police Service is requesting assistance identifying a woman found in Lake Ontario. On Thursday, August 10, 2017, at 5:15 p.m., officers responded to a call for an unknown trouble at Humber Bay Shores Park.

The woman is described as white, 55-70, 5'4"-5'6", 135-150 lbs., short grey hair, brown eyes. She was wearing a red tank top and navy blue pants. The woman did not have any identification or possessions with her and a composite image was released.

Attempts were made to identify the missing woman by searching through Canada-wide missing person cases and through public appeals for information, but no match was found. In January 2023, with the approval of the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario and Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, the Toronto Police Service began using Investigative Genetic Genealogy for this case. The investigation found distant relatives of the deceased throughout North America, most of whom traced their heritage to a specific region in Switzerland.

In August 2023, members of the Toronto Police Service, with the assistance of the RCMP Liaison Program, reached out to police in Switzerland. Through continued collaboration, the investigation focused on a woman who was reported missing in Switzerland in September 2017.

A DNA comparison between the deceased woman and relatives of the missing person confirmed that the cases were a match. Swiss police notified her family.

As the woman's death is not considered a criminal matter, the woman's identity is not being released.

The 1960 U.S. Census is the next census scheduled to be released to the public in the year 2032. That’s only 8 years from now. I certainly am anxious to see those records. A recent discussion has erupted over the preservation of the original data. It reminds me of the controversy about the 1960 U.S. Census.

For years I have heard stories about the 1960 U.S. Census. The stories vary a bit on each telling but usually say something like, “the 1960 U.S. Census was stored on a computer media for which there no longer was any equipment to read it. The census data has been lost because of the change in technology.”

I always doubted that story. I was just starting my career in computers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I remember well the tape drives of that era. I spent many hours repairing those half-inch and three-quarter inch tape drives that weighed 800 pounds each! I think I still could disassemble and reassemble a Honeywell 204B-9 half-inch tape drive while blindfolded. That device was a maze of electronics (without integrated circuits), disk brakes, a big vacuum pump, and numerous solenoids. 

Since I am familiar with both the old and the new technologies involved, I decided to investigate the 1960 census story. In fact, David G. Hendricks, a historian at the U.S. Census Department, long ago wrote the true story of what happened. Here is what I learned:

The 1960 census returns were recorded on paper, then microfilmed in 1961 for long-term storage. In addition to the microfilm, the Census Bureau also creates many reports from the information obtained in each census. These reports are mostly demographic in nature. They describe the ethnic make-up of the U.S. population. They also document American migration patterns and even tell how many bathrooms are in the average American home. 

In 1961 the staff at the Bureau of the Census had access to a brand-new electronic behemoth known as a “computer.” In order to simplify some of the data analysis that the Census Bureau must conduct, the staff used the new computer to create the “microaggregation files” that contain statistical information. This information had been entered on punch cards in earlier censuses, but magnetic tape was the storage medium of choice in the sixties. The Bureau of the Census had the required data keypunched and then stored on 9,121 reels of magnetic tape: 7,297 reels created with UNIVAC II-A tape drives; 1,678 tapes created with UNIVAC III-A tape drives, and another 146 magnetic tapes created on still other brands of tape drives. The reports needed were generated and printed on paper. Once the reports were completed, the tapes were placed in storage.

Following consultation with staff of the National Archives in 1975, the Census Bureau created a plan to provide for the "adequate retention of the 1960 data." The plan specified that the Census Bureau would copy only 642 reels of tape onto more modern storage media – at least, modern by 1975 standards. The other reels of tape were deemed to be unimportant and of no long-term value. 

All of the stories about loss of 1960 Census data revolves around the 642 reels of tape readable only by UNIVAC II-A tape drives. By 1975, the UNIVAC II-A tape drives were obsolete. Despite the challenge, the Census staff managed to find some old tape drives still in use that could read the tapes. These old drives were installed on a computer system which also had newer drives installed, so a tape conversion seemed simple. By 1979, the Census Bureau successfully copied 640 of the 642 II-A tapes onto newer-format tapes. The two tapes that were not copied were, in fact, missing. The missing tapes had 7,488 records, or about 0.5 percent of the total of approximately 1.5 million records that had been identified as having long-term value. Of the 640 tapes that were located, only 1,575 records (or less than .2 percent of the total number of valuable records on II-A tapes) could not be copied because of deterioration.

The bottom line is that 99.3% of the 1960 microaggregation data was saved on modern tape formats and can be read today. Every decade or so, the data will again be copied onto modern media of the time. Remember, too, that the findings of the original study had already been published on paper in the 1960s, and that the paper findings are also preserved. 

As mentioned earlier, censuses prior to 1960 had the microaggregation data entered on punch cards. However, those cards were always thrown away after the studies were completed and published (on paper). The loss of 0.7% of the 1960 microaggregation data files on magnetic tape doesn’t seem like such a big loss. That is still 99.3% more data preserved than any earlier census. As historian David G. Hendricks of the U.S. Census Department wrote to me, “these files performed their function, and all of the data are available on paper, if not electronic, form; so none of the information from the 1960 census has been lost.”

All this discussion of magnetic tape really isn’t important to genealogists anyway. All of the microaggregation files on magnetic tape mentioned here did not have any genealogy value since there were no names or street addresses listed. Genealogists should have no fears about “missing data.” The magnetic tapes only stored a subset of the census data, a subset of no interest to genealogists.

The original 1960 U.S. Census documents were recorded on microfilm in 1961, and all that microfilm is still in good condition, locked up at the National Archives. In other words, images of the original documents have been preserved. Admittedly, very few people have seen these microfilms so the genealogy public dors not know if they are still readable or not.

In compliance with U.S. laws, the complete 1960 U.S. Census documents on microfilm will be released to the public in the year 2032, 72 years after the original enumeration. I hope to be around to read those films!

May is Jewish American Heritage Month and an online exhibit is sharing the voices from Jewish neighborhoods in and around Boston.

“We want people to understand the contributions that Jewish Americans have made to our immediate neighborhoods and to our larger community and country,” said Rachel King, executive director of the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center at American Ancestors.

The Jewish Heritage Center has an extensive archive of historical photos and documents, but volunteers have now interviewed people who grew up in Jewish neighborhoods in Chelsea, Lynn, Dorchester and Roxbury.

Sara Lee Callahan, who grew up in Chelsea in the 1940s, said the Jewish Neighborhood Voices exhibithelps people understand the history of the neighborhoods that may not be apparent today.

“Except for Native Americans, none of us came from here. We all came from different parts of the world,” Callahan said.

Herb Selesnick helped conduct interviews and said he found commonalities in the stories that he hopes can help unite people.

You can read more in an article by John Atwater published in the WCVB.com web site at: https://bit.ly/4bqbiGg

The following is a press release from the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

Did you know that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) isn’t just a building in Washington, DC? It’s actually a collection of more than 40 facilities nationwide, including field archives, federal records centers, and presidential libraries.

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A selection of images from archival holdings at National Archives facilities around the country. These images and many others will be featured on the new Highlights from Our Holdings at the National Archives web page.

To better highlight the archival holdings nationwide, the National Archives established a new web page: Highlights From Our Holdings at the National Archives. Seven locations are currently linked from the page: Atlanta, Boston, Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Riverside, San Francisco, and Seattle. Each of those pages features 10–14 records from their holdings, and there are 75 featured records thus far.

“In addition to what is already highlighted on the page, we plan to create pages for the National Archives at Chicago, the National Archives at Denver, the National Archives at Kansas City, the National Archives at New York City, and the National Archives at St. Louis, as well as pages highlighting our holdings in College Park, MD, and Washington, DC,” said Erin Townsend, Communications Coordinator, Research Services.

The new web pages contain an array of documents that will be interesting to a wide audience.

"In some cases, we have featured documents relating to well-known individuals, such as the naturalization records of Maria Von Trapp and Marlene Dietrich, the bankruptcy petition for Edgar Allen Poe, and the World War I draft registration card of Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth,” said Lori Cox-Paul, Director, Field Records Division. “In other cases, we have chosen documents relating to individuals whose stories have been told in movies, such as the memo disbanding the racially segregated work unit Dorothy Vaughan worked in. Her story was told in the film Hidden Figures. We have also included the Slave Manifest listing Solomon Northup, whose story was told in Twelve Years a Slave.”

The web pages will also serve to highlight well-known events, such as the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980, as well as lesser-known, but equally important, stories from American history. Site users can view a photograph of womenwho served as Yeomanettes in 1918, the first women to enlist in the U.S. Navy, and a photograph of sailors who served on the USS Mason (DE-529), the first U.S. Navy ship with a predominantly Black crew.

“We’ve also highlighted the different formats of records we hold, including an architectural drawing for the initial design of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle and the elevation plan of Boston’s Custom House Tower,” Cox-Paul said. “And for fun, we included an engineering drawing created by the Forest Service Region 8 office showing detailed designs for cocktails.”

The following is a press release from the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan announced today that Dr. Kenvi Phillips will serve as the inaugural Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library, effective June 16, 2024. Dr. Phillips will lead the planning and administration of all Library programs and activities.

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Image courtesy of Dr. Kenvi Phillips

“I am excited Dr. Phillips is joining the National Archives as the Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library. With her extensive experience in libraries and archives and her passion for public history, she will be an excellent steward for our archival and artifact collections and public engagement work,” said Shogan. “As the Director of the first digital presidential library in our system, Kenvi will help shape a new course for how we think about access to, and engagement with, the stories and decisions that helped shape our nation.”

Dr. Phillips has over 20 years of experience in libraries, historic sites, and academic institutions and brings strong collections, research, archival, and programming experience—along with many other firsts—to the role. She most recently served as the first Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Brown University Library, where she played an integral role in strategic planning and relationship building across the campus, in the community and region, and with other academic institutions. Dr. Phillips was the first Johanna-Marie Frankel Curator for Race and Ethnicity at Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library, focused on the History of Women in America. She also served as Assistant Curator of Manuscripts at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and earlier as a historian at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Dr. Phillips earned a doctorate in United States history and a master’s degree in public history from Howard University, and a bachelor of arts in history from the University of Tulsa. 

“The Obama Foundation is excited to work with Dr. Kenvi Phillips as Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library at the National Archives,” said Valerie Jarrett, Obama Foundation CEO. “Her strong experience in archives and collections will help make the digitized records a great asset that will be available to everyone, everywhere, including historians, researchers, educators and students. We look forward to continuing to work with the National Archives as they provide access to these historic records, and we look forward to displaying artifacts from the Obama Presidential Library in the Foundation’s Obama Presidential Museum, which we will open on the South Side of Chicago in Spring 2026."

The Barack Obama Presidential Library is one of 15 libraries in the Presidential Library system operated by the National Archives and Records Administration, representing Herbert Hoover through Donald J. Trump. Presidential Libraries and Museums are repositories for each administration’s papers, records and artifacts, and preserve and provide access to historical materials, support research, and curate interactive programs and exhibits that educate and inspire.

The 25th Scottish Indexes Conference will be held on 7 September 2024. As always, this is a free online event. 

Here are the first five speakers to be announced:

‘Searching for ancestors in The Royal Mail Archive’ by Susannah Coster, archivist at The Postal Museum in London

‘Parochial Matters: parishes, districts and counties’ by Robert Urquhart of abbotshall.net 

‘An introduction to the Forfeited Estates papers in the National Records of Scotland’ by Tessa Spencer, Head of Outreach and Learning at the National Records of Scotland 

‘Scottish Burghs and Trade Incorporations’ by Chris Paton, genealogist and author of The GENES Blog

‘Criminal Ancestors: piecing together their story from a variety of sources’ by Emma Maxwell, genealogist at Scottish Indexes

Find out more and register at https://www.scottishindexes.com/conference.aspx.

I love cloud computing and use it several times daily. I use a cloud-based email service. I make backups of all my files to a cloud-based service, and I’m even writing this article with a cloud-based word processor. I have written a number of times about cloud-based services.

There is one big question, however: what happens to your files when a cloud computing service disappears abruptly?

This is not an idle question. Cloud-based file storage services have suddenly disappeared a number of times, for a number of reasons. However, one other problem is perhaps more common: you pay for a cloud-based server’s services and then, when it comes time to renew that payment, you don’t have enough money available.

In fact, any cloud-based site could disappear at any time for any number of reasons. Not only can legal authorities shut it down (that happened to MegaUpload.com (now renamed and back online as mega.com), but so can bankruptcy, or a fire or a tornado if the backup service itself isn't backing things up properly off-site, which strikes me as rather stupid, but it does happen. If anyone chooses to use off-site backups, it should be an online backup service that preaches to its customers about the need for off-site backups! However, low-budget backup services might not practice what they preach.

I will suggest the answer for all of these problems is simple: keep your own backup copies.

No hard drive is perfect. Likewise, no cloud-based service is perfect. You should always keep a backup copy of every important file stored on your hard drive, and you should also keep a backup copy of every important file stored in the cloud. 

The backup copy, in fact, might be a simple copy of the original file that is presently stored on your hard drive. If the backup copy suddenly becomes unavailable, who cares? The original should still be available. If you are constrained by disk space, you might want to copy important files to a plug-in USB external hard drive or to a CD or DVD disk or even to a flash drive for short-term local storage as well as to a cloud-based backup service for off-site storage before deleting the file(s) from your hard drive. For those who are truly paranoid, like myself, always backup your files to at least TWO different cloud-based backup services in different locations as well as to a local USB external drive, and also keep the original on the computer's hard drive. With four copies stored in three different locations, the odds of any one disaster destroying everything are slim indeed.

I suppose the argument is that one electro-magnetic pulse from a nuclear attack still could destroy everything. While possible, I doubt if any of us will be worried about genealogy file backups following such a disaster. I suspect we will all be spending our waking hours focusing on more important issues, such as staying alive, finding food, water, and a roof over our heads. In short, I don't plan backups to use in case of nuclear disaster.

I also don't back up everything. For instance, I don't back up my computer's operating system because I know I can always obtain a new copy from the manufacturer or at my local computer store. Likewise, I don't back up word processors or spreadsheet programs or other applications because new copies are readily available online or in stores. However, I do make at least four copies of every bit of data I create or anything created by others that I decide is worth saving.

At home, I keep the original files on each computer's hard drive, plus I have a 14 terabyte external hard drive that plugs into the computer's USB connector. I run software that backups up every new file to the USB external drive within minutes, sometimes within seconds,  after it is created. 

NOTE to Macintosh users: You already have TimeMachine installed on your system. It is the best free backup program I have ever seen, and Apple gives it away free of charge. If you are not already using it, run out now, purchase a USB external hard drive, return home, plug it into your computer's USB connector, and configure TimeMachine. You'll be glad you did.

In addition, all my important data files are backed to Dropbox's cloud-based service within a few minutes of their creation. If that wasn't enough, my computer also makes daily backups to Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service) cloud-based file storage area. If Dropbox suddenly goes offline, I still have my original file plus my local backup copies plus the copy on Amazon S3. Likewise, if Amazon suddenly disappears, I still have the original plus local backups plus the copy on Dropbox.

I have a similar setup on my laptop computer. I have a portable plug-in USB hard drive that I don't always take with me on short trips. However, any files I do create will be backed up the next time I plug in the portable hard drive. Likewise, if I have a high-speed Internet connection, I can manually backup files to Dropbox and Amazon S3. However, I do not have the laptop set for automatic backups because sometimes my Internet connection is very slow or perhaps I am paying for the number of bytes being sent. In those situations, I will wait until I am back within range of a high-speed, low-cost connection before making backups. If it is a very important file, I might make an immediate backup copy to a flash drive that I usually carry in my pocket.

NOTE #2: The likelihood of Amazon disappearing seems remote. The company is well-funded, scrupulously honest, and keeps multiple copies of all files stored in multiple data centers around the world. One local fire or tornado won't impact Amazon S3 very much. In fact, the  earthquake in Japan a few years ago shut down Amazon's Tokyo data center in Japan for some time, but no data was lost as backup copies were also stored in other Amazon data centers around the world. All Amazon S3 users with data stored in the Tokyo data center were able to retrieve their files within a few hours.

Details about Amazon S3 cloud-based backup services may be found at http://aws.amazon.com/s3/.

NOTE #3: I may write about Amazon's S3 cloud-based storage service someday. I have it installed both at home and on my traveling laptop, and I use it daily. It is a heavy-duty backup service and is one of all the cloud-based backup services. I think it is cheaper than purchasing your own hard drive, and it makes off-site backups as well as any other service I’ve used. However, I also found Amazon S3 to be a bit complex to configure, so I don't recommend it for computer novices. If you have some systems administration experience, you might want to use Amazon S3's amazingly low-priced backup service. You can read more at http://aws.amazon.com/s3/.

I also keep a lot of my backups on pCloud at: https://pcloud.com/. You can never have too many backups!

Let's return to the original question: What happens to your files when a cloud service shuts down?

The answer is: Not much.

That assumes that you performed your backups in a professional manner like what I’ve described here: you kept multiple backups regularly and stored them in multiple locations.