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GeneaNet : Community : Genealogy Blog Thursday Mar 11, 2010

Genealogy Blog 


11 March 2010

Weird Ways To Be Buried - #2: Eternal Reefs

Eternal Reefs, Inc. creates permanent living legacies that memorialize the passing of a loved one. For families and individuals that choose cremation, Eternal Reefs offers a new memorial choice that replaces cremation urns and ash scattering with a permanent environmental living legacy.

Families and friends are invited and encouraged to participate in the creation of their loved one's memorial reef. From placing your handprint in the damp concrete during the casting, making a rubbing of the bronze plaque during the viewing ceremony, or placing a flag on your loved one's memorial reef during our military honors ceremony, all Eternal Reefs' activities provide peace of mind for everyone involved.

Eternal Reefs

10 March 2010

Weird Ways To Be Buried - #1: Heavens Above Fireworks

Heavens Above Fireworks celebrates the life of a partner, relative or friend.

"We arrange special fireworks displays which include a number of unique fireworks designed or modified to incorporate cremation ashes, allowing for a spectacular memorial event and happier farewell.

We offer a variety of professional fired displays. These are planned to meet specific client requests and can be supported by other activities. We also offer other services including rockets for self firing incorporating funeral ashes and these can be supported by other fireworks to create your own mini display and we can provide the service for pets ashes too."

Heavens Above Fireworks

Meryl Streep Learns She's Related To Pal Mike Nichols On TV

Meryl Streep was left stunned by a TV study of her family tree - because it uncovered her family links to moviemaker Mike Nichols, who is one of her closest friends.

The actress agreed to be part of top U.S. genealogist Henry Louis Gates, Jr's new documentary Faces of America - but she had no idea his research would suggest she and Nichols are cousins.

Ironically, Streep and Nichols have worked on four films together.

After learning the news during the taping of the upcoming special, Streep shrieked and said, "This is ridiculous!"

Source & Full Story

Google, Italy Agree Massive Book Scanning Project

Google said Wednesday it had reached agreement with the Italian culture ministry to scan up to a million books housed in the national libraries of Rome and Florence.

The move comes as publishers and tech companies battle for dominance in the fast-growing digital e-book market, with Google positioning itself as a go-to place on the Internet for potential book buyers.

The agreement regards out-of-copyright books published before 1868, including writings by Italian physicist Galileo Galilei and German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Google will also provide the libraries with digital copies of the books to post on their own websites.

Source & Full Story

Old Skull Found At Hobart School, Australia

Police say a human skull was found at the Albuera Street Primary School during excavation works.

The Sandy Bay school lies partially on an abandoned 19th century graveyard, and it is believed the remains are historical.

The school's principal says she is not surprised by the find.

Kerry McMinn says it is the second time human remains have been discovered at the school.

Source & Full Story

Pocket Genealogist 3.43A02 (Public Beta)

PDAs and Handhelds - PDAs and Handhelds - Purchase

Pocket Genealogist 3.43A02 (Public Beta) has been released.

Changes:

• Added "Info" to the "Tools", "Device" menu (on device). This will display the platform name and CE Version.
• Fix to how dialogs are positioned on the tabbed displays for Windows Mobile 6.5.3 devices.

LTools 1.2.22

Other Tools - Windows - Freeware

LTools 1.2.22 has been released.

Changes:

• Tidy Legacy HTML - added checks in the pre-processor to insure that the Source and Destination folders exist before proceeding.
• Options|Preferences - added the default text for the optional LTools link in Tidy Legacy HTML to Options/Preferences.
• Options|Preferences - changed XmlConfig.dll to save LTools.xml using Windows-1252 encoding so that special characters used by international users can be entered and saved in the Tidy Legacy HTML section of the Options|Preferences dialog.

Kith and Kin Pro 3.0.7

Full Featured - Windows - Shareware

Kith and Kin Pro 3.0.7 has been released.

Changes:

• Person and family selection lists now retain the selected record.
• Improved the appearance of some dialogs on systems using non-standard DPI settings.
• The "Cascade" function now starts aligning open forms at the top-left of the Tree Area.
• Opening some pictures from the search results list did not set the width and height fields correctly. Fixed.
• The file date in exported GEDCOM headers now conforms to GEDCOM format.
• Dropping a file onto the Kith and Kin Pro icon removed the name of the last-used database. Fixed.

GENP 3.04

Full Featured - Windows - Purchase

GENP 3.04 has been released.

Changes:

• There are 8 new themes. These themes are based on the existing themes but without music.
• New standard query for Attribute Types.
• Improve More dialog when editing the Late Date.
• Improve response of Tasks Wizard on Windows 7.
• Improve installer process when update - no longer have to backup and restore system tables.
• GEDCOM Import Wizard and New GenBase Wizard indicate that Themes are optional.
• Query Manager now ensures that there is at least one Search Field from a group repesented in the Exported Fields list.
• Fix date validation when adding a Burial Attribute.

Brother's Keeper 6.3.41

Full Featured - Windows - Purchase

Brother's Keeper 6.3.41 has been released.

Changes:

• Fixed a problem on Group sheets. The recent 6.3.40 version which fixed one problem for making HTML files for Range of Numbers, happened to cause a different problem for HTML files where some pages were missing when there were multiple marriages. This problem has been fixed now.

9 March 2010

Finally, RootsTelevision Will Not Close!

Megan Smolenyak has posted the following announcement:

OK, you convinced me! After getting inundated with emails, tweets, and Facebook postings and messages about the closing of RootsTelevision.com (RTV), I’ve decided to keep it going. I honestly had no clue how valued it was by the genealogical community, and I agree with the many of you who pointed out that it serves a somewhat different purpose than the prime time programming that’s on TV at present (much as I’ve been enjoying that!). At the same time, I think many had not realized that RTV is a one-person company, but one that’s not inexpensive to provide.

Thanks very much to all you who reached out to share your thoughts and experiences. Although I haven’t been able to respond to all of you, I hope you realize that your comments made all the difference in the world. Thanks also to the more than 20 individuals, organizations and companies that contacted me to explore the notion of adopting RTV. It’s refreshing to know how many were willing to step in and help. I also need to thank Brightcove, the video platform used by RTV, for working with me to find viable solutions.

Source & Full Story

The Graveyard Gone Mobile

The Graveyard is a very short game. You play an elderly woman who visits a cemetery. She walks down a straight path towards a bench in front of a chapel. She is old and has trouble walking. So it takes a while to get there. During the difficult walk, we pass by the neatly arranged rows of concrete tombs embedded in a lush atmosphere of sun, clouds, trees, shrubs and animals who found a home in this place. When she finally arrives at the bench, the woman sits down and listens to a song. It's a pensive moment, a quiet pause. When the song is done, she gets up and walks back to the gate. In the full version of the game, there is a chance that she dies while sitting on the bench.

The Graveyard can be downloaded via http://Tale-of-Tales.com/TheGraveyard Or directly from the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/tale-of-tales/id349454576?uo=6

Source & Full Story

Ulysses S. Grant's Collected Papers Now Accessible Online

With the digitization process now complete, the 31 volumes of Ulysses S. Grant's collected papers now are available online through the Mississippi State University Libraries.

The volumes contain thousands of letters written by and to the 18th U.S. president and former Civil War general and Union Army hero. Also including military documents, other materials and numerous photographs, the collection may be viewed free via the Ulysses S. Grant Association's Web site, http://digital.library.msstate.edu/collections/usgrant/index.html.

In its physical form, the complete Grant collection of about 350,000 items spans some 15,000 linear feet of traditional storage.

Source & Full Story

8 March 2010

Belmont, Lancashire, England, Archives To Go Online

The lives and times of the people of Belmont, Lancashire, England, over the last 150 years are being revealed in project by members of St Peter’s Church.

Every page from the baptisms, marriages and burials registers has been photographed by George Skinner, a retired university lecturer.

The information is being uploaded to the Lancashire Parish Clerks website allowing free access for people.

George’s wife Valerie, a headteacher until her recent retirement, has completed all the 1,255 individual records of burials from 1850 to 1992.

Source & Full Story

Lord Baden Powell Invited To Meet Hitler, MI5 Files Show

Records also show that the founder of the Scout Movement, Lord Baden-Powell, was invited to meet Adolf Hitler.

Despite the invitation there is no evidence Baden-Powell met Hitler, although he did meet with some members of the Nazi hierarchy.

Lord Baden-Powell met Hartmann Lauterbacher, chief of staff of the Hitler Youth and Joachim von Ribbentrop, to London 19 November 1937.

Von Ribbentrop, who arranged the meeting for Baden-Powell, was Germany's ambassador to Britain at the time and became Hitler's foreign minister the following year.

Source & Full Story

The Mystery Of Hitler's 'Spyclists'

Summer 1937. What could be more fitting in the cool afternoon of an English country lane than a group of cycling tourists steadily pedalling their way from one historic site to another, stopping to camp overnight in fields along the way.

The only problem was, that summer, some of those groups of teenage boys were Hitler Youth.

In an era without satellite photography, when detailed ordnance survey maps could be hard to come by and when tension in Europe was rising, MI5 were worried that this innocent cyclo-tourism was a cover for spying.

MI5 had been told that Hitler Youth groups visiting abroad were asked to complete a detailed questionnaire, including questions on terrain, population, and political views of the population.

Source & Full Story

US Women Pilots From World War II To Be Honored

When World War II beckoned, she was a 24-year-old mother of two daughters, ages 4 and 2. Her husband was a draftsman for Lockheed in Southern California, and her brother became an Army Air Forces pilot.

Carol Brinton longed to become a pilot herself -- "My husband had bad eyes so he couldn't get in, and I've always had a hard time letting my brother get ahead of me in anything," she said -- but the U.S. military had other ideas.

"They kept saying women couldn't fly anything bigger than a Piper," she said.

In 1942, with a shortage of male pilots and a desperate need to muscle up for war, the military changed course.

Source & Full Story

What About Writing Articles For The GeneaNet Genealogy Blog

What about writing articles for the GeneaNet Genealogy Blog and sharing on the topics you are interested in.

It can be news, events, genealogy research (tips, terms, etc.), family history societies, archives, genetic genealogy, software, books, onomastics, coats of arms, etc.

To submit an article (a note), click "Submit a Note" in the right sidebar of the GeneaNet Genealogy Blog.

Then, you just have to type in your article. You can add links and images but there's no need to format the content.

(You can select any of the listed topics, this is not really important.)

Click the "Preview Note" button, then click "Edit Note" to modify it or "Submit Note" to validate.

If you can read the French, you can translate any article or part of article from the GeneaNet GeneaWiki into your language!

7 March 2010

Major East-West Division Underlies Y Chromosome Stratification Across Indonesia

The early history of Island Southeast Asia is often characterized as the story of two major population dispersals: the initial Paleolithic colonization of Sahul ~45 thousand years ago and the much later Neolithic expansion of Austronesian-speaking farmers ~4,000 years ago. Here, in the largest survey of Indonesian Y chromosomes to date, we present evidence for multiple genetic strata that likely arose through a series of distinct migratory processes. We genotype an extensive battery of Y chromosome markers, including 85 SNPs/indels and 12 Y-STRs, in a sample of 1,917 men from 32 communities located across Indonesia.

We find that the paternal gene pool is sharply subdivided between western and eastern locations, with a boundary running between the islands of Bali and Flores. Analysis of molecular variance reveals one of the highest levels of between-group variance yet reported for human Y chromosome data.

Source & Full Story

6 March 2010

New Jersey ‘genealogical gold’ is available in Belvidere, Flemington

A treasure trove of genealogical data labeled “ye Colonial Kinsmen From Plymouth Rocke to York Towne” has been discovered and is offered to the public by both the Warren County Historical Society in Belvidere and Hunterdon County Historical Society in Flemington.

The genealogical study is presented on eight 2-foot by 3-foot charts documenting about 200 immigrants of Plymouth, Massachusetts and New Amsterdam (present day New York City) and tracing their families through six generations. In total, over 3,000 individuals, all related by blood or marriage, are included, providing many genealogical connections for current New Jersey residents. The material was compiled in 1978 by Joseph N. Kearney of the Roadmaps-Thru-History Association in Los Angeles.

Source & Full Story

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