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GeneaNet : Community : Genealogy Blog Saturday Nov 21, 2009

Genealogy Blog 


17 November 2009

Former SS Member, 90, Charged Over Nazi Massacre

German prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 90-year-old former SS soldier with 58 counts of murder for the killing of Jewish forced labourers in the final weeks of World War II.

With Allied forces fast overrunning Germany, the man, named in media reports as Adolf Storms, was accused of hatching a plot on March 28, 1945 with other SS and members of the Hitler Youth, to slaughter Jewish prisoners.

The 90-year-old, a former member of the fifth SS Tank Division "Viking", now lives in the west German industrial city of Duisburg near Cologne. In December, police raided his residence, seizing documents.

Source & Full Story

16 November 2009

Scotland: Glencoe Massacre Orders Displayed

A 300-year-old document which led to one of the most infamous episodes in Scottish history is to go on display.

The signed order for the Massacre of Glencoe will form the centrepiece of an exhibition to mark the end of the Year of Homecoming.

It will be among nine cultural treasures which will be displayed in the National Library of Scotland from this week.

Thirty eight members of the MacDonald clan were killed in the massacre.

Source & Full Story

Australia Apologies For Kids Shipped From Britain To Colonies

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a historic apology Monday to thousands of impoverished British children shipped to Australia with the promise of a better life. But his government ruled out paying compensation for the abuse and neglect that many suffered.

The British government has estimated 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad between 1618 and 1967, most from the late 19th century onward. After 1920, most of the children went to Australia through programs run by the government, religious groups and children's charities.

The programs, which ended 40 years ago, were intended to provide the children with a new start - and the Empire with a supply of sturdy white workers. But many children ended up in institutions where they were physically and sexually abused, or were sent to work as farm laborers.

Source & Full Story

6 November 2009

Iconic Photo Of JFK Assassin Oswald Was Not Faked, Professor Finds

Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid has new evidence regarding a photograph of accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Farid, a pioneer in the field of digital forensics, digitally analyzed an iconic image of Oswald pictured in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other.

Oswald and others claimed that the incriminating photo was a fake, noting the seemingly inconsistent lighting and shadows. After analyzing the photo with modern-day forensic tools, Farid says the photo almost certainly was not altered.

"If we had found evidence of photo tampering, then it would have suggested a broader plot to kill JFK," said Farid, who is also the director of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth.

Source & Full Story

5 November 2009

Archaeologists Track Infamous Conquistador Through Southeast North America

Archaeologists at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History have discovered unprecedented evidence that helps map Hernando de Soto's journey through the Southeast North America in 1540. No evidence of De Soto's path between Tallahassee and North Carolina has been found until now, and few sites have been located anywhere.

Fernbank's Curator of Native American Archaeology, Dennis Blanton, has amassed an impressive collection of objects that reveal a probable stop in today's Telfair County, Geogia, USA, a location important not only for its critical mass of de Soto-era artifacts but also for its position off the previously predicted route. He'll present a scholarly paper before colleagues at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference on November 5 in Mobile, Alabma, USA.

Source & Full Story

4 November 2009

Sisters Who Married On The Same Day After Outbreak Of World War Two Celebrate 140 Years Of Wedded Bliss

Two sisters who were married on the same day in 1939 are celebrating a combined 140 years of wedded bliss.

Doris and Margaret Wiles married their husbands in a double wedding 70 years ago, just after Britain declared war on Germany on September 3 1939.

The girls, terrified they or their partners would be killed, tied the knot on October 21 at a Manchester chapel, convinced that however uncertain their futures, they wanted to marry their sweethearts.

The sisters have since lived rich and happy lives, and now have seven children, 24 grandchildren and 34 great-grandchildren between them.

Source & Full Story

29 October 2009

Son Hunting For Story Of Father's WWII Photo Cache

This photograph of German soldiers on the Eastern Front during World War II, is one that Paul Sadler found in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany at the end of World War II.

After 64 years, Bruce Sadler slowly is unraveling the mystery of the haunting Nazi photos his father, Paul, found in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany at the end of World War II.

The images that Paul Sadler never could bring himself to talk about are ones that Bruce Sadler is driven to talk to anyone about, especially if they can help him identify the content.

Source & Full Story

26 October 2009

The Memoro Project

The Memoro Project is a non profit online initiative dedicated to collecting and divulgating short video recordings of spontaneous interviews with people born before 1940.

An editorial staff identifies and authenticates the material uploaded by the volunteers involved in the project.

The Memoro Project was created by Memoro S.r.l. with the financial support of the Province of Cuneo, Italy. In exchange for visibility on the portal, we are seeking sponsors with a strong ethical code.

Any profit will be devolved into charity to associations supporting the elderly and/or the children, creating a link between the generations.

Bristol Project Will Take Us Back In Time

Bristol traffic is thundering past as Sarah Cox and Hilary Light stand outside the St Mary Redcliffe Sixth Form College building.

To anyone passing by, it must appear a fairly unremarkable scene of modern life in Bristol city centre.

However, Sarah and Hilary are seeing the lines of vehicles, the nearby blocks of modern flats and nearby St Mary Redcliffe Church through different eyes.



Called A Time Traveller's Guide to Bristol, it will cover the century from 1910, and focus upon six areas of the city: Redcliffe Hill; Park Street; The Harbour; Castle Park; Stokes Croft; and the Eastville stadium, where IKEA is now situated.

Source & Full Story

23 October 2009

Evidence Alexander the Great Wasn't First at Alexandria

Alexander the Great has long been credited with being the first to settle the area along Egypt's coast that became the great port city of Alexandria. But in recent years, evidence has been mounting that other groups of people were there first.

The latest clues that settlements existed in the area for several hundred years before Alexander the Great come from microscopic bits of pollen and charcoal in ancient sediment layers.

In the past few years, scientists have found fragments of ceramics and traces of lead in sediments in the area that predate Alexander's arrival by several hundred years, suggesting there was already a settlement in the area (though one far smaller than what Alexandria became).

Source & Full Story

View Post-War Scotland From The Air

Air photographs of Scotland taken during and after the Second World War have joined an extensive online maps collection.

The 'Ordnance Survey Air Photo Mosaics of Scotland, 1944-1950' provide detailed information on the Scottish post-war landscape.

You can search for photos by place-names or by using a zoomable map of Scotland. A Google maps overlay lets you compare them with present-day air photography and mapping.

Taken by the Royal Air Force, mostly from Spitfire and Mosquito fighter planes, these mosaics were intended for reconstruction and planning after the war. The photographs represent Ordnance Survey's first widespread use of aerial survey methods in Scotland.

Source & Full Story

16 October 2009

Computerised Age-Regression Photo Shows George Washington's Wife Martha As Twentysomething Woman

In an age of television makeovers, it is perhaps inevitable that eventually Martha Washington's turn would come.

A team of historians, curators and forensic anthropologists have concluded that the first first lady - imagined by Americans for more than 200 years to be a dowdy, double-chinned and dowager-capped matron - may have actually been hot.

A computerised age-regression portrait was commissioned to peel away the age and wrinkles and reveal the slim and lively brown-haired woman in her 20s who captivated a future revolutionary hero and president.

Source & Full Story

15 October 2009

Mussolini Worked For MI5 Agents

Benito Mussolini may be among history's most notorious fascist dictators, but evidence suggests he worked for British secret services during World War I.

Historian Dr Peter Martland says MI5 records show it paid "Il Duce" £100 per week, about £5,000 today,to spread pro-war propaganda via his newspaper.

The Cambridge University academic made the discovery while studying the papers of former agent Sir Samuel Hoare MP.

Mussolini's socialist publication, Il Popolo d'Italia, carried a key voice because it served the factory workers of Milan whose output was essential for the war effort.

Source & Full Story

12 October 2009

The Only Sisters To Fly Spitfires In World War II Are Reunited With Iconic Aircraft

This was the forgotten army of women who broke through male-dominated barriers to pilot the aircraft – and to deliver them for service in the front line.

It was a job that perfectly suited the Attagirls, as they became known, and not just because they boosted the war effort with such pluckiness and enthusiasm.

Yesterday the only two sisters to fly Spitfires during the war turned the clock back seven decades to recall those heady days – after being reunited with one of the aircraft that gave them ‘such a thrill’.

Joy Lofthouse, 86, and Yvonne MacDonald, 88, joined the ATA in 1943 after spotting an advert in a flying magazine.

Source & Full Story

10 October 2009

Was This Man The First Terrorist Of The Modern Age?

On February 12, 1894, a young intellectual anarchist named Emile Henry went out to kill. And, in doing so, he arguably ignited the age of modern terrorism.

As he had looked down on Paris from near his miserable lodgings in the plebeian 20th arrondissement on the edge of Paris, he vowed war on the bourgeoisie. His specific goal was to avenge the execution of Auguste Vaillant a week earlier.

Now, armed with a bomb hidden under his coat, Henry walked up the Avenue de l'Opera, pausing at several elegant cafes, but he moved on because they were not full enough. He entered the Cafe Terminus, which is still there, near the Gare St Lazare, ordered two beers, and a cigar.

Source & Full Story

WWII Codebreakers Recognised

Men and women who worked in top secret to break Nazi Germany's military codes during WWII have been publicly honoured 60 years on.

Some of the surviving veterans gathered at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, to receive commemorative badges from Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Mr Miliband said: "The people of Bletchley Park helped win the war... we must never forget."

Many historians agree the codebreakers' efforts shortened the war by two years.

Source & Full Story

Suffragette March Marks Centenary in Edinburgh, Scotland

Up to 4,000 women, men and children are to take part in a parade in Edinburgh, Scotland, marking a key suffragette demonstration which took place 100 years ago.

Participants are planning to carry banners and dress in historic costumes in Saturday's re-enactment of the original march in the capital in 1909.

The movement was a fight for women's rights which lasted almost 60 years.

At the time hundreds of people took banners and flags to join a rally along Princes Street on 10 October 1909.

Source & Full Story

8 October 2009

Search Begins for Last Lost Woman Pilot of WWII

The fog rolled in from Santa Monica Bay just after noon on Oct. 26, 1944, just three hours before Gertrude Tomkins Silver opened the hatch of her fighter plane, a P-51 Mustang.

The plane left from a little strip called Mines Field, today known as the Los Angeles International Airport, bound for a three-day journey to New Jersey, where it would be placed on a cargo vessel and shipped to Great Britain to fight World War II's final battles in Europe.

The pilot, Silver, a 34-year-old New Jersey native nicknamed Tommy, had spent more than 500 hours in the air and had a reputation for being able to handle fighters like the P-51s, some of the Army's fastest aircraft.

Source & Full Story

Holocaust Memorial Inaugurated In Romania

A monument dedicated to the memory of Holocaust victims in Romania was inaugurated on Thursday in Bucharest, in the presence of survivors and government officials.

The memorial designed by Romanian sculptor Peter Jacobi consists of an austere concrete structure, a column bearing the inscription "Remember" in Hebrew, a star of David and a wheel, symbolizing the Roma community, itself a victim of persecutions and deportation during World War II.

"By inaugurating this memorial, Romania reaffirms its determination to assume its past," President Traian Basescu said during the ceremony.

Source & Full Story

Radio Host Seeks Pardon For Executed South Carolina Ancestors

Nationally syndicated radio host Tom Joyner is asking South Carolina to posthumously pardon two of his great-uncles — black landowners executed in 1915 after being convicted of murdering an elderly Confederate Army veteran.

Joyner learned the fate of farmers Thomas and Meeks Griffin during filming of the PBS documentary "African American Lives 2," which first aired in February 2008 and was based on research by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The program traces the lineage of 12 people, including Joyner. The host of "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" said he was stunned to learn of his South Carolina roots and two great-uncles he didn't know existed.

Source & Full Story

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