Here is an article that is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I have written several times about the activities of Proton, the non-profit organization specializing in making online activities private and secure. I would suggest that all computer owners should use the services of Proton.

The following was written by Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of Proton:

From the very beginning, Proton has always been a different type of organization. This was probably evident from the way in which we got started via a public crowdfunding campaign that saw 10,000 people donate over $500,000 to launch development. As a company created by scientists who met at CERN and that, to this day, remains run by scientists, Proton has never been led by people who are driven by the maximization of profit. What has always mattered most is impact, led by a deeply held belief that people must come before profits.

Proton’s mission has always been unique. Most companies are created to be sold, and they achieve that by placing profit above all other considerations. For most businesses providing “services” to the masses, the easiest way to profit has been to misuse user data and engage in surveillance capitalism to the detriment of society and democracy. At Proton, we have intentionally taken a different path to achieve a more difficult mission. We want to remake the internet in a way that is private by default and serves the interests of all of society, not just the interests of a few Silicon Valley tech giants. In short, we want to create an internet that is able and willing to defend freedom, no matter the cost.

For exactly 10 years, we have done this, as today marks the 10th anniversary of the initial Proton Mail crowdfunding campaign in 2014. Our journey has not been an easy one, but thanks to the support of all of you, we have persevered and thrived despite all the obstacles thrown in our way. For this reason, community is the most important thing to us, and we want to ensure that Proton continues to faithfully serve the community for the next 10 years and beyond. To achieve this goal, I, as Proton’s founder, joined together by Jason Stockman (Proton’s co-founder) and Dingchao Lu (Proton’s first employee), have jointly endowed the non-profit Proton Foundation through a donation of Proton shares. These transfers and commitments from the foundation founders make the Proton Foundation the primary shareholder of Proton and make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits.

Why a non-profit foundation?

The fact that Proton was not previously a non-profit has certainly not prevented us from supporting our beliefs. In the past five years, Proton has given grants worth more than 2.7 million dollars to advance online freedom and democracy around the world. Organizations that have been funded include the Tor Project, the European Digital Rights network, GrapheneOS, and many others. In the world of open source, we continue to develop and freely license some of the most widely used encryption libraries, such as OpenPGPjs, in a bid to make end-to-end encryption more widely available. Proton also continues to fund and operate services that can never be profitable, such as the Proton VPN projects to maintain free and open internet in countries like Iran and Russia, work that was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

However, adopting a Swiss non-profit structure provides additional security, which a corporation cannot achieve. Because Proton has no venture capital investors, we can take this additional step to secure the future. Swiss foundations do not have shareholders, so Proton will no longer be dependent upon the goodwill of any particular person or group of persons. Instead, Swiss foundations and their board of trustees are legally obligated to act in accordance with the purpose for which they were established, which, in this case, is to defend Proton’s original mission. As the largest voting shareholder of Proton, no change of control can occur without the consent of the foundation, allowing it to block hostile takeovers of Proton, thereby ensuring permanent adherence to the mission.

In addition to its governance role, the Proton Foundation will also be consolidating, continuing, and expanding our existing grant-giving efforts to support organizations that are aligned with our mission to defend online and offline freedom around the world. To support this work, Proton is pledging 1% of our net revenues to the foundation when conditions allow, further committing the financial success of Proton to the public good. Finally, the Proton Foundation will also be an investor active in supporting companies and technologies that advance our vision of a free and open internet. In pursuing these activities, the foundation will not act like a traditional venture capital investor. We have no fiduciary duty to deliver a financial return – our success will be measured instead by impact.

A structure for sustainable change

While comparisons may be drawn to the non-profit Signal Foundation or Mozilla Foundation, the Proton Foundation seeks to tread a different path. We believe that if we want to bring about large-scale change, Proton can’t be billionaire-subsidized (like Signal), Google-subsidized (like Mozilla), government-subsidized (like Tor), donation-subsidized (like Wikipedia), or even speculation-subsidized (like the plethora of crypto “foundations”). Instead, Proton must have a profitable and healthy business at its core. For this reason, our services will continue to be offered through the for-profit Swiss corporation Proton AG, which now operates under the supervision of the non-profit foundation, which is its primary shareholder. This change in governance does not signal a shift in how our core businesses are run. Proton is not profit-driven, but we still must retain profitability as a core objective because a cornerstone of safeguarding Proton’s mission is independence through self-sustainability.

As with much of what we do, this approach is unique, but we believe this hybrid model offers the best of both worlds. For instance, the for-profit corporation is not prevented from issuing stock options to attract and incentivize the best talent in tech. Nor would it even prevent the corporation from raising capital on public markets if additional resources are required to win the fight for the future of the internet. However, the foundation’s control would always require the company to act in a way that does not jeopardize Proton’s original mission, and Proton’s financial success is directly committed to the public good. In this way, we seek to preserve not only Proton’s values, but also our culture of innovation, entrepreneurship, and ambition, and our relentless competitive spirit.

The next 10 years and beyond

In the past 10 years, we have launched five services and reached 100 million people. In the process, we have also grown from a team of 3 to a team of 500. But we have not gone far enough or fast enough towards achieving our vision. In the next 10 years, we will work harder, ship faster, and make bigger and bolder bets because in seeking to upend the status quo, sometimes the biggest risk is not taking risk. We enter our second decade hopefully wiser, learning from mistakes and having a better appreciation of the challenges ahead. But most importantly, we remain just as committed to keeping our promises to you.

We believe the change to a non-profit structure is right for the community and allows us to pay your support forward by ensuring that Proton’s mission continues to be protected into the future. We want to thank you for your trust and support for Proton’s mission, from our initial crowdfunding days to the present and into the brighter future we are building together.

Visit the Proton Foundation website

The summer program provides an opportunity for participants to safeguard their personal history while also connecting with those who share similar interests. The GRIP Genealogy Institute is offering a thorough introduction to Ashkenazic Jewish genealogy at LaRoche University from July 14-19.

Organizers have stated that the weeklong course, led by Emily Garber, will enhance students' research skills by concentrating on methodology, genealogical records, and geographic locations.

The summer program provides an opportunity for participants to safeguard their personal history while also connecting with those who share similar interests. The GRIP Genealogy Institute is offering a thorough introduction to Ashkenazic Jewish genealogy at LaRoche University from July 14-19.

According to organizers, the course, which spans a week, aims to enhance students' research skills by concentrating on methodology, genealogical records, and geographic regions. Between June 23-28, GRIP is offering 11 virtual courses.

Prospective participants are required to register and get in touch with Sexton at ksexton@ngsgenealogy.org no later than July 5th.

Visiting a pick-your-own farm is a great experience. It’s fun and healthy for the whole family, and you get the freshest possible products. Pick-your-own also is a way to enjoy the outdoors and appreciate the working landscape. Find a farm to visit by going to vermontpickyourown.org.

The new website will help you find out what is in season and where to pick. Hosted by the Vermont Vegetable and Berry Growers Association, vermontpickyourown.org lets you search by crop and location to find what you’re looking for. The listings describe what farms have to offer and when these crops are available along with hours of operation. The descriptions are written by the farmers, and they keep them up to date.

Strawberry pick-your-own is in full swing now across the region. As the growing season progresses, a wide array of crops will become available for customers to harvest. Blueberries, raspberries and flowers come later in the summer. Apples and pumpkins arrive in early fall, and Christmas trees can be cut starting in November. Some farms offer unusual pick-your-own crops like elderberries and herbs.

Visiting farms to buy their products is a great way to invest your food dollars in the local and regional farm community. In turn, these farms spend their money locally and regionally, too.

This website was designed by farmers, University of Vermont Extension personnel and Tamarack Media Cooperative, with funding from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

So check out vermontpickyourown.org today!

The Kurdish Digital Archive, launched in May, is part of the Digital Archive of the Middle East (DAME) project hosted by the UK’s University of Exeter.

The DAME project is a collaboration between the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter and the Institute for International and Area Studies at China’s Tsinghua University. 

The goal of the archive is to digitize and make accessible key Kurdish materials from the University of Exeter’s archival collections, as well as to collaborate with other Kurdish archives and institutions in fostering joint research, the sharing of archival resources, and the preservation and dissemination of Kurdish cultural heritage.

“In this project, key archival materials at the University of Exeter, including materials from the Omar Sheikhmous Archive and the Chris Kutschera Archive, were digitized and made accessible via the DAME website with metadata in English, Kurdish, and Arabic,” Farangis Ghaderi, research fellow and principal investigator of the Kurdish component of the DAME project, told Kurdistan Chronicle. 

“The project also creates a platform for connecting and collaborating with Kurdish archival centers and initiatives in Kurdistan, such as the Zheen Center for Documentation and Research and the Kurdish Heritage Institute, with whom the University of Exeter has signed memoranda of understanding.”

“Through this project we hope to share archival resources and foster joint research with other Kurdish archive initiatives and promote the preservation and dissemination of Kurdish cultural heritage,” she said. 

The archive includes the Chris Kutschera Archive, a collection of photographs compiled by the French photographer Edith Maubec and her writer husband Paul that includes thousands of images taken in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkiye between 1970 and the early 2000s. 

“These include intimate photographs of individuals such as Jalal Talabani, various members of the Barzani family, Sami Abdul Raman, Franso Hariri, and the poet Hajar Sharafkandi, as well as scenes from Kurdish villages, camps and cultural life, images of political meetings and delegations, and so on,” she said.

“In addition to this, the University has taken over the management of the Kurdistan Photo Library, a continually expanding digital photographic archive established by Edith Maubec and dedicated to Kurdistan and the Kurdish people.”

The following announcement was written by the Bucks County Genealogical Society:

Event Details

Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 11:30 AM

Bristol Wharf, 100-148 Basin St, Bristol, PA, 19007

More info here

The Bucks County Genealogical Society will be participating in the Celtic Festival hosted by the Celtic Heritage Foundation! We hope you'll join us for a day of Celtic music, dance, food, crafts, vendors and special exhibits.

Visit our table at the Bristol Wharf for free genealogy guidance - whether in Bucks County or Ireland or anywhere in the world!

An English-language genealogy group founded by a Singaporean will be celebrating its first anniversary in July with about 15,000 members worldwide.

To the members of the Chinese Ancestry Research (CAR), founder Nathan Co is a tomb reader and ancestor whisperer. 

The self-taught genealogist, who is in his 50s, shares the same Chinese surname as the 17th-century war admiral Shi Lang and traces his ancestry to Fujian province in China. He started CAR as a blog and repository for findings on his own ancestry, but it has evolved as he receives more requests for help.

His Facebook group has members from more than 100 countries, with most coming from North America, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. There are also Singaporeans, who form about 10 per cent of the members, as well as people from Malaysia and the Philippines.

Some of his earliest members are from Liverpool, England.

The fintech and banking professional told The Straits Times: “Someone from Liverpool found me and the word spread among Chinese descendants as I was helping them locate some of their lost fathers and grandfathers who were deported by the British after World War II.”

That someone is Ms Kellie-Ann Flower, a boatyard owner from a community of more than 30 half-Chinese Liverpool families. The 53-year-old found CAR when she randomly typed “Chinese genealogy”.

You can read more in an article by Chin Soo Fang published in the straitstimes.com web site at: https://bit.ly/4eqfho6.

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

If you record your genealogy research efforts on paper, you might want to skip this article. However, if you use a computer program as an aid to your genealogy research, read on.

Is the genealogy program you chose a database of results, or is it a tool to help your research while that research is still a work-in-progress? Perhaps a bigger question is, "Will my genealogy program help me evaluate evidence? Or is it simply a place to record the results after I have done all the research?"

I suspect that many genealogists do not use their favorite genealogy programs to full potential. In fact, some genealogy programs make it difficult to accomplish what a computer does best: organize, filter, and retrieve information whenever it is needed. 

Many genealogy programs appear to be nothing more than a place to record your research CONCLUSIONS. Keep that word in mind for a few minutes: "conclusions." I would suggest that your genealogy program should do much, much more. Sadly, most of today's genealogy programs do not.

With many of today's genealogy programs, you must first look at all the available evidence, weigh the possibilities of inaccuracies, and then decide which facts you wish to believe. Only then, after you have done all the hard work, are you able to enter the information into many genealogy programs. However, that doesn't fulfill my needs, and I bet it does a poor job of meeting your needs as well. Sadly, many genealogists accept such limitations as normal and never stop to think about what their real needs are.

What I need is a research TOOL. I need a database that helps DURING the process of gathering and evaluating genealogy information. During this process, I often don't yet know what is accurate versus what is not. In fact, if I find contradictory information, I need a user-friendly database to collect all the possibilities, help me compare and evaluate all that evidence, and thereby help me determine what is most likely to be the truth. Computers should be great at such tasks. Sadly, most of today's genealogy programs are lacking in such capabilities. That includes the online programs (The Next Generation of Genealogical Sitebuilding, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, and others) as well as today’s Windows, Macintosh, Linux, iPad, and Android genealogy programs. 

For example, I have a great-great-grandfather who remains a mystery to me. The problem is that I have found TOO MANY records of his birth date and birth place, and the various "facts" all contradict each other. Which one is correct?

For instance, I have found two different dates of birth recorded for him and four different locations of birth in three different U.S. states. One book with no source citations claims he was born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, while my deceased aunt's handwritten notes claim he was born in Nashua, New Hampshire. The man's son applied for a marriage license in 1892 and reported his father's place of birth was Portland, Maine, while an unsourced entry in FamilySearch claims that he was born more than 100 miles further north in Corinth, Maine. 

Great-great-granddad himself confused the records still further when he talked to census enumerators. The first year he appeared in the census records, he claimed he was born in New Hampshire. In later census records, he claimed to have been born in Maine.

NOTE: Perhaps Great-great-granddad didn't talk with the enumerators himself; the enumerators may have talked with a neighbor or with family members instead. Perhaps the enumerator only talked with the bartender at the local tavern, a bartender who claimed he knew my great-great-grandfather well. Who knows? Such is the “fun” of census records.

Which claim is correct? 

In fact, I am not sure if any of them are correct; so, which one do I place in my genealogy database? Do I have to wait until I am able to determine which record is correct – if any – before I enter the information? If so, what good is that if I have to do all the evaluation first, working from memory or from hand-written notes? Shouldn't a computer program assist me in this evaluation process? Shouldn’t any good genealogy program help me keep ALL my notes and ALL my assessments as to possible accuracy? 

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/13370434. (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. 

Want to relocate? How about leave the rat race behind?

A stunning Maine island with a population of just 90 is appealing to new residents to live there. Isle au Haut is encouraging people to settle permanently on the remote, 13 square mile island which is only accessible by boat.

But for anyone looking to escape the rat race, the idyllic community could be the perfect spot. And with adorable clapboard homes offered at below market rates there are bargains to be snapped up.

'Many people daydream about moving to a remote island village like ours: for those readers who can answer 'yes' to the above question, that daydream could very well become a reality,' the community states on its website.

A stunning Maine island with a population of just 90 is appealing to new residents to come and live there

'To sustain a vibrant year-round community, we readily welcome new year-round residents.'

Families with children who could attend the local school, as well as commercial fishermen are particularly sought after. 'Though it's not everyone's cup of tea, it's ours. And who knows, it may very well be yours,' the Isle au Haut Community Development Corporation states.

The median price for a typical home on Isle au Haut's most affordable street is around $300,000, according to Realtor. By comparison, an average home elsewhere in Maine sold for a median of $391,000 in April. However, island life is not without its challenges which include having to take a ferry to the nearest medical center or hardware store.

While a US census put the population at 92 in 2020, locals say there are just between 30 to 40 full time residents. In the summer months this swells to 300 as tourists flock to take advantage of the rugged natural beauty and biking trails.

Comment by Dick Eastman: This is more appealing to me than you know. I plan to move to Maine (or I should say “Move BACK to Maine as I was born and raised there” within a few weeks, although not to Isle au Haut.Still...

Perth, Ontario – Perth Museum is excited to announce the launch of its highly anticipated public portal, which provides a glimpse into to its collections database. This new initiative allows the public to explore some of the museum's most treasured historical artifacts from the comfort of their own home.

The portal offers users the opportunity to delve into a rich array of artifact records, meticulously curated by the museum's dedicated team. The initial offerings include exhibition themes such as the Mammoth Cheese, the Last Fatal Duel of Upper Canada, the Henry K. Wampole collection, the Mathesons, and the history Matheson House itself.

"We are thrilled to launch this public portal, a significant milestone in our department’s commitment to transparency and community engagement," said Kathryn Jamieson, Town of Perth’s Manager of Tourism and Culture. "By opening up our collections, we hope to spark a greater appreciation for the cultural heritage preserved within the walls of the Museum."

The portal, accessible at PERTH.ca/MuseumCollection, is designed to evolve and expand over time. Museum staff are committed to regularly updating the database with new additions, ensuring that users can continually discover and engage with fresh content.

"We recognize the immense value of making our collections accessible to the public," Jamieson added. " We are dedicated to ongoing efforts to enhance and enrich the user experience, aiming to ensure that everyone can explore the museum’s holdings."

As Museum Month concludes, the launch of the public portal marks a significant step forward for Perth Museum. The Museum continues to fulfill its mission to interpret and preserve inclusive and accessible stories through objects, photographs, and archival materials representing thousands of years of history in the Perth area from multiple viewpoints.

Discover the rich history of Perth and experience the new public portal firsthand by visiting PERTH.ca/MuseumCollection. Explore, learn, and connect with the stories that shaped our community.

The following is an announcement written by MyHeritage:

It’s been only three months since launch, and OldNews.com is already on its way to becoming the top website for historical newspapers from around the world. OldNews.com was warmly received by the genealogy community, and the feedback we’ve gotten has been wonderful. Several genealogists even shared the priceless discoveries they made using historical newspapers from OldNews.com. We are deeply invested in adding a broad array of newspaper content from many countries, and are likewise committed to enhancing the user experience through new features and tools. Today, we are pleased to share two additions to the search capabilities on OldNews.com that will undoubtedly improve the way you find and explore historical newspapers. 

Enhanced publication name filter

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3Rt7r3o.