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  • 11 Sep 2024 7:48 PM | Anonymous

    Today, in collaboration with Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy along with local and international cultural institutions, we invite everyone to explore The Next Chapter of our ongoing project showcasing Ukraine’s heritage on Google Arts & Culture.

    In the words of First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska: "In a time when Ukraine is facing the most difficult challenges, our culture remains our strength and inspiration. The 'Ukraine is Here' project on Google Arts & Culture gives everyone an opportunity to discover outstanding Ukrainians who have glorified our land all over the world: Mykola Leontovych, Solomiya Krushelnytska, Maria Prymachenko, and Kateryna Bilokur and many more. Today, when Russian occupiers are trying to destroy our heritage, this project is especially important. It not only preserves Ukrainian culture but also promotes it worldwide. So let us together reveal the beauty of Ukraine to the world – its art, history, and traditions, because they are our strength and identity."

    Ukraine is Here is a long-term initiative to digitize and share Ukraine’s vibrant cultural history. It has now vastly expanded since it was first announced two years ago offering an unprecedented digital resource of immersive stories, virtual galleries, 3D historic treasures and videos — all in one place for global audiences to explore.

    Below you’ll find some of the highlights of what’s new from the National Museum of Decorative Arts of UkraineLviv Historical MuseumAncient Lviv MuseumUkrainian InstituteSkeironUkraine HouseHopchytsya History Museum and many more partners.

    You can read a lot more in an article by google.com web site at: by Amit Sood published in the Google web site at: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/arts-culture/discover-ukraines-culture/

  • 11 Sep 2024 8:14 AM | Anonymous

    What is All About That Place?

    A unique free learning event brought to you by the Society of Genealogists, the Society for One Place Studies, British Association for Local History and Genealogy Stories.

    Running over 10 days from Friday 27 September to Sunday 6th October, All About That Place is packed with 140 recorded 10-minute talks on genealogy and local history. You'll learn research techniques, social history, tools, websites, archives, record keeping tips, ways of creating and sharing your findings... and much, much more!

    Plus, throughout the event, you'll be supported in putting your learning into action by completing challenge activities.

    Learn more at: https://www.sog.org.uk/all-about-that-place-2024/

     

  • 10 Sep 2024 8:16 PM | Anonymous

    FREE BCG-SPONSORED WEBINAR

    “A Myriad of Slave Databases” 

    by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, FASG


    Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

    In the summer of 2023, American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society announced the collaborative 10 Million Names project, an undertaking to recover the names of people of African descent who were enslaved in the area of the United States. This monumental task of centralizing datasets about African Americans is likely to take years to accomplish; in the interim, this webinar provides a useful survey of the many existing databases that serve a similar purpose though limited in scope. 

    LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson was elected as a trustee of the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) in 2016 and served as President from 2019-2022. She was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists in October 2021. She enjoyed a 35-year career as a tax lawyer before her 2013 retirement as a partner from the big four accounting firm of EY. She is most proud of her service on the staff of the bipartisan, bicameral, Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress where she helped to craft the historical Tax Reform Act of 1986. LaBrenda is now a full-time genealogist focused on teaching and writing. Her research centers on African American families that survived American slavery, primarily in the Carolinas. LaBrenda has published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, among other publications, and in 2016 she published a guide for researching African Americans in her home county in South Carolina, a book that was hailed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s long-running genealogy column as an important model for all counties of South Carolina and other states. LaBrenda earned a BA from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and both a Law degree and a Master of Laws degree from New York University. From 2017-2023, LaBrenda served as the Registrar General for the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage, a national lineage society that honors ancestors who were enslaved in the United States before 1870. She completed ProGen 13 and served as the mentor of ProGen 37. LaBrenda is the SLIG Course Coordinator for the African American track, and is also on the faculty of the Genealogical Institute of Pittsburgh, the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records, and the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research. See  https://www.LabGarrettGenealogy.com.

    BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “A Myriad of Slave Databases” by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, FASG. This webinar airs Tuesday, September 17, 2024, at 8:00 p.m. EDT.   

    When you register before September 17 with our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars(http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=9015) you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Anyone with schedule conflicts may access the webinar at no charge for one week after the broadcast on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website. 

    “Education is one of the most significant ways of achieving BCG’s mission for promoting public confidence in genealogy through uniform standards of competence,” said President Faye Jenkins Stallings, CG. “We appreciate this opportunity to provide these webinars that focus on the standards that help family historians of all levels practice good genealogy.”

    Following the free period for this webinar, BCG receives a small commission if you view this or any BCG webinar by clicking our affiliate link: http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=2619.

    To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2024, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard at https://bcgcertification.org/bcg-2024-free-webinars.  For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (https://bcgcertification.org/learning).

  • 10 Sep 2024 7:59 PM | Anonymous

    Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library is pleased to announce the launch of a new online resource, the Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) Digital Archive. This resource is the product of an ongoing, three-year initiative at Columbia University Libraries to digitize and make available more than 15,000 residential drawings from the Frank Lloyd Wright archival collections.

    The FLW Digital Archive supports the Libraries’ commitment to make collections as accessible as possible for in-person and online use. It facilitates global access to high-resolution images for use in teaching, research, and historic preservation worldwide. The archive launches with over 10,000 high-resolution images and will continue to expand as drawings are digitized, with an estimated completion date of spring 2026.

    “We are immensely proud to make these digitized collections broadly available for public and scholarly use,” said Teresa Harris, Director of Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library. “The residential projects were at the very heart of Frank Lloyd Wright’s practice as Wright developed many of the enduring themes of his work in the context of designs for houses.  These themes including the meaning of organic architecture, the importance of place and materials, the reliance on hands-on learning, and an emphasis on affordable building techniques continue to resonate with researchers and enthusiasts alike. Public access to these collections honors the spirit of openness and iteration in Wright’s work.”

    Project 0411: Herbert Ullman house (Oak Park, Illinois). Unbuilt Project. Presentation drawing: Exterior view. Frank Lloyd Wright, 1904. [0411.001]


    Project [0309.006]

    Avery Library holds unparalleled collections of drawings, photographs, papers, and audio-visual material from renowned American architect  Frank Lloyd Wright. His archives are frequently consulted by architects, researchers, students, and homeowners around the world. In addition to democratizing access to these significant collections, the FLW Digital Archive was developed to promote visibility and research into  some of the lesser-known aspects of the collections.


    For example, the project sheds light on the many women who were instrumental in making design decisions for their homes, but were previously absent from the residences’ public descriptions. Archival research and enhanced item-level cataloging now allow each residence to be searchable by all known client names, rather than only one head-of-household. As she is no longer veiled under the moniker of “Mrs. Arthur Miller,” users will be able to search by Marilyn Monroe’s own name to discover the former couple’s iconic unbuilt residence, replete with expansive entertaining areas and dedicated space for costume storage.

    The archive will also soon be available on Columbia Libraries’ website and will continue to grow as already-digitized materials outside of this project are added. Avery Library also aspires to digitize and make publicly available further Frank Lloyd Wright materials including non-residential drawings, photographs and correspondence.

  • 10 Sep 2024 9:12 AM | Anonymous

    The following is a press release issued by the Institute of National Remembrance (in Poland):

    The straty.pl database is an intangible memorial to all those who suffered during World War II, said IPN President Karol Nawrocki, Ph.D. at the press conference related to the IPN project “Personal losses and victims of repression under German occupation in the years 1939-1945.”


    On 6 September 2024, a press conference was held at the President Lech Kaczynski Central History Point in Warsaw, regarding the IPN project “Personal losses and victims of repression under German occupation in 1939-1945.” Its result is a publicly accessible online database known as the straty.pl database.

    The database allows the users to set queries (searching by type, place and year of repression). It can also be used by historians and journalists. It does not contain scans of documents on the basis of which the data are entered, but it indicates the places where these documents can be found.

    Since January 2020, 912,000 new records have been entered into the straty.pl database. Today there are 5.5 million records in our database. There is no family in Poland that has not been affected by the tragedy of World War II to some extent. I would like to appeal to all those who have such a family history to turn to the Institute of National Remembrance so that our work can be completed next year. On the one hand, it is a database of materials that are in the IPN Archive, prosecution materials, investigative materials from the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, but on the other hand, it is also information that comes from you all, said the IPN President during the conference.

    The Director of the IPN Archive Marzena Kruk informed that the IPN archival collection amounts to nearly 4 km of archival materials that relate to the period of World War II.

    As of 2 September 2024, the database provides information on 5,565,892 victims and people repressed by the German regime, including Archbishop Antoni Julian Nowowiejski, Henryk Ząbek, Maria Hiszpańska-Neumann, as well as two women: Irena Szydlowska and Anna Stolowska, whose wedding rings were found as a result of search work in the Valley of Death in Chojnice.

    The press conference was accompanied by an exhibition of documents and artifacts prepared by the IPN Archive, including files stored in matchboxes.

    We encourage you to report information about your relatives repressed by the Germans, who are not included in our database yet. We would like also to encourage other institutions to join the project by providing information.

    Video of the conference on the IPNtv channel: https://straty.pl/.

  • 10 Sep 2024 8:56 AM | Anonymous

    California investigators have utilized new DNA technology to finally identify the identity of a man found in a waterway in 2001.

    Authorities announced last week Craig William Ott was the person found in Minor Slough on Ryer Island near Rio Vista in Solano County on March 11, 2001.

    After discovering the body, investigators spent the next year trying to identify the person, but ultimately were not successful. 

    However, as identification technology advanced over the next 20-plus years, investigators opted to reopen the pursuit of identifying the body in 2023.

    This decision was made as part of an initiative called the Doe Cold Case Project, which seeks to use new advancements in science and technology to identify previously unidentified bodies. The project is run by the Solano County Coroner’s Office to re-open and re-investigate cases of people who haven’t been identified in several years. 

    Authorities exhumed the body and spent over a year trying to find an identity. Ultimately, new DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy enabled the forensic staff and coroner to identify the body as Ott.

    You can read more in an article in the forensicmag web site at: https://tinyurl.com/4w8mee7h.

  • 9 Sep 2024 12:10 PM | Anonymous

    The remains of two women were discovered back in 1994 in one case and in 2013 in the other. Since then, police had no idea who they were, let alone who killed them.

    Albuquerque police say they were able to use DNA from the victim’s remains and turn that into a profile. From there, they’re able to upload the profiles to genetic testing sites like 23andMe.

    If they get a match, then they start the process of tracking down the victim’s family.

    “You can take DNA that’s left behind at a crime scene or that from a victim in this case, and we turn it into an ancestral profile,” said APD Commander Kyle Hartsock. 

    It’s science based on chance.

    “As you’re doing these investigations, new people can upload their DNA. So one day you log in, and all of a sudden you have a first cousin who tested, and yesterday you only have a third cousin,” said Hartsock. 

    Hartsock says the department and the FBI are using genealogy to solve cold cases.

    “It gets us on a path, it gives us a lead,” Hartsock said. 

    After uploading a victim or suspect’s DNA to a genetic testing site, they wait for a hit. From there, Hartsock says they do old-fashioned detective work.

    “You have to get very close to actually confirm who it is. And then, while talking with the families, they said, ‘Oh yeah, we haven’t seen our daughter or granddaughter since this time,’” said Hartsock.

    APD and the FBI were able to do this, this year, identifying Carmela Vivian Duran, and Terry Matthews as the remains discovered in 1994 and 2013.

    You can read more in an article by Monica Logroño published in the kob.com web site at: https://shorturl.at/Am6kV

  • 9 Sep 2024 11:32 AM | Anonymous

    Global family history company MyHeritage strengthens its foothold in Canada with the acquisition of Quebec genealogy company MesAieux.com

    QUEBEC CITY, Canada & LEHI, Utah, September 9, 2024 — MyHeritage, the leading global family history platform, announced today the acquisition of MesAieux.com, a popular family history service specializing in French Canadian genealogy. This is the 13th acquisition by MyHeritage. In August 2021, MyHeritage acquired Filae, the leading genealogy service in France. With the addition of MesAieux.com, these acquisitions bolster the company’s leadership position in the global genealogy market and secure its prominence in the Francophone world.

    Founded in 2004, MesAieux.com has grown to become Quebec’s most popular family history service, with over one million users. The website offers an online family tree builder with automated features to add ancestors, based on a proprietary algorithm for French phonetics developed by the company. MesAieux.com is also home to approximately 15 million historical records from Canada, primarily from Quebec, and several exclusive collections.

    Founded in 2003, MyHeritage has developed one of the world’s leading family history platforms. Powered by unique technologies and AI features, MyHeritage is trusted by millions of customers worldwide and is available in 42 languages. MyHeritage users have collectively created tens of millions of family trees, and the platform is home to a vast collection of 20.8 billion historical records from all over the world.

    “We are delighted to welcome MesAieux.com to the MyHeritage family,” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “Canadian genealogists will have much to gain from the combination of the two companies. We’ve been impressed with MesAieux.com’s accomplishments, and this acquisition reinforces our commitment to expanding the resources for French-speaking genealogists. Together we remain committed to the mission of helping everyone discover and preserve their family history for the benefit of future generations.” 

    “MyHeritage’s technologies are outstanding, and the company continues to make its mark as a global leader in family history,” said Jean Trudel, Founder and CEO of MesAieux.com. “Their innovative spirit, know-how, and global footprint will strengthen our brand and deliver even greater value to genealogists in Canada and abroad.”

    As a MyHeritage company, MesAieux.com will soon benefit from MyHeritage’s resources and technological expertise, which will facilitate the publication of new historical record collections and provide greater value to MesAieux.com users, who will be introduced to the wide array of MyHeritage services. All historical record content from MesAieux.com will soon be published on MyHeritage, and its users will benefit from the capabilities of MyHeritage’s innovative tree-to-tree and tree-to-record matching technologies.

    Privacy Guarantee

    MyHeritage has a strong privacy framework that includes a strict commitment to the privacy of users’ data, making it unique among the major genealogy companies. Its privacy policy states unequivocally that MyHeritage will never sell or license personal data and genetic data to any third party. 

    About MyHeritage

    MyHeritage is the leading global platform for family history. With billions of historical records and family tree profiles, and with sophisticated matching technologies, MyHeritage gives users the joy of discovering their past and empowering their future. MyHeritage is the most popular family history service and DNA test in Europe, and is trusted by tens of millions of users worldwide. The MyHeritage DNA test is an at-home DNA test that reveals ethnic origins and finds new relatives based on shared DNA. The DNA results are seamlessly integrated with the family trees on the platform. MyHeritage offers a large variety of products and features for genealogists of every level. These include automatic matching technologies and world-class photo tools that are based on AI. www.myheritage.com

    About MesAieux.com

    MesAieux.com (also known as YourFolks.com in English) is a Quebec-based family business founded 20 years ago to make genealogy simple and reliable. Its initial mission was to build a reliable database with exclusive services to help people with ancestors from Quebec find them rapidly. MesAieux.com is a leader in Canadian genealogy, serving more than 1,000,000 members, both experienced researchers and beginners. MesAieux.com provides its members with simplified tools and professional quality products. Those who have little time to spend on their genealogy love it because they can build their family tree in a few clicks. Its database covers Quebec as well as other places where French-Canadians have migrated and includes Canadian birth, marriage and death records, as well as obituaries and censuses. MesAieux.com is renowned for the quality of its data and its customer service, which is courteous, prompt, and professional. www.mesaieux.com

  • 6 Sep 2024 4:59 PM | Anonymous

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

    Adobe's popular PDF file format is often used in genealogy work. Many of the CD-ROM disks of interest to genealogists have been published in PDF format, as has much of the information found on genealogy web sites. 

    The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) has become the de facto standard for electronic documentation distribution. Once a file is created in PDF format, anyone can read your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended — with layout, fonts, color, links, and images intact. In short, it will look like a document published with a desktop publishing program. It will look the same on any operating system, including Windows, Macintosh, Chromebook, Linux, UNIX, and even handheld computers. Best of all, the required software to view your PDF document is completely free. As a result, everyone can read your document. 

    PDF files used to be considered to be "secure." That is, nobody could ever take your PDF document, import it into a word processor, and then use your data. However, that has now changed. In fact, you can now easily convert PDF files to Word .DOC files, .TXT files. or to other formats.

    This conversion capability is new. As an illustration, here is an excerpt from an article I published 22 years ago in this newsletter that shows the state of the PDF format at that time. In the February 25, 2002, edition of this newsletter, I wrote:

    By setting security options in Acrobat, the author can give his or her PDF documents a certain level of copy protection. One of the options available within Adobe Acrobat program that creates PDF files will prevent users from copying text or images, effectively disabling the normal ‘copy-and-paste’ functions. Other options prevent users from printing the document or changing the features that the author has set. You can even set a password to prevent viewing by would-be users who do not have the password. To be sure, anyone who can view a document can always re-type the information by hand. However, PDF files make it very difficult to electronically extract bits and pieces of information from within a document.

    I should point out that this protection is not 100% guaranteed. In fact, sophisticated hackers have succeeded in ‘cracking’ Adobe PDF files and extracting the original information. However, a lot of software skills are needed to ‘crack’ a PDF file. Even owners of the Adobe software that creates PDF files cannot easily ‘crack’ a PDF file created by someone else. Only a handful of people have ever managed to open a PDF file, and one of those even spent a few days in jail for his activity. While not 100% safe, you can assume that, if you select the proper options, there is about a 99.99999% chance that a PDF document you create will never be ‘cracked’ by anyone else. Few people are willing to risk incarceration for extracting data from your genealogy PDF file!”

    My, how the world has changed in the past 22 years! Today, there are a number of programs that will quickly and easily extract (or “crack”) data from a PDF file. Adobe has since given up all ideas of protecting their file format. Nobody is in danger of being incarcerated in 2024 for "cracking" a PDF file. (Of course, copyright laws still apply to any converted file.)

    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/13403556 (A Plus Edition password is required to access that article.)

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

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