by Lisa Cooke | Jun 27, 2013 | 01 What's New, Ancestry, images, Who Do You Think You Are?
The television channel TLC has picked up the series “Who Do You Think You Are?” and you can tune in to the first episode on Wednesday, July 23 at 9|8c. There’s been a slow leak of celebrity names, but the wait is worth buy medication online it. Here’s how the celebrity list is shaping up:
- Christina Applegate
- Kelly Clarkson
- Cindy Crawford
- Zooey Deschanel
- Chelsea Handler
- Chris O’Donnell
- Jim Parsons
- Trisha Yearwood
Here’s the first taste of what you’ll see:
The #WDYTYA website is up and running and you can visit here
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 25, 2013 | 01 What's New, Findmypast, Irish
Here’s the latest from findmypast.com:
“On June 30 1922, during the Irish Civil War, the Public Records Office of Ireland, located at the historic Four Courts in Dublin, caught fire. Tragically a considerable amount of Irish records were destroyed.
The fire has had lasting effects – still felt today – as Irish family history requires a unique approach to research than other heritages. To commemorate this anniversary and encourage exploration of Irish genealogy, findmypast.com will offer its full collection of Irish Birth, Marriage and Death indexes free of charge from June 27 to June 30. Anyone searching for their Irish ancestors can access the full Irish record collection by registering for free at findmypast.com.
Despite a great loss of records in the historic fire, there are still many opportunities to discover Irish heritage, with countless fascinating stories to be found from the records that survived.
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 23, 2013 | History, Technology
More than 80% of Americans over the age of three (!) have at least one computer in the house today. Most of us don’t have its predecessor: the typewriter. But the typewriter keyboard was the forerunner of the computer keyboards we all know now. I just wanted to take a moment to wish the keyboard a happy 145th birthday!
On this date in 1868, an American named Christopher Sholes patented the first usable typewriter with the same “QWERTY” key organization we all know today. The keys were not placed in alphabetical order, but with the most-frequently used keys under and near the fingers of the trained typist (who, if you learned like I did, lines up his her left hand with the pinkie finger on “A” and the right hand with the pinkie finger on the semicolon, and both thumbs on the space bar).
Check out Sholes’ patents at Google Patents
It’s not hard to see how the invention of the typewriter (and later the computer) keyboard has revolutionized our ability to communicate. But it has had interesting “side effects,” too–like giving women ground-floor entrance to the business world. On this the 145th anniversary of the keyboard, think about it for a second–how does this one invention affect your life?
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 18, 2013 | 01 What's New, Census, Records & databases
Hands up, who wants to help prep the 1950 U.S. census for us all to explore?
The 1950 census won’t be released to the public for seven more years, but it took just longer than that to create the locational tools that millions of researchers have used to find their families on the 1940 census.
The dynamic duo of Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub, who produced the locational tools for the 1940 census on the Morse One-Step site, are recruiting 200+ volunteers to help transcribe enumeration district definitions and create urban area street indexes for the 1950 census.
Their “job description” for these volunteers sounds really meaty and hands-on: “These projects aren’t for everybody. Volunteers should have basic computer skills, typing skills, have access to the Internet, be detail people but not perfectionists, be independent workers and able to follow instructions, be patient enough to handle large amounts of information, and be comfortable with projects that may take weeks or months, not hours, to accomplish. You should be able to handle and manipulate images (jpgs) of maps and Enumeration District (ED) definition scans. A large computer monitor would be desirable but not essential. We will provide instructions for carrying out the work, and a place to ask questions. Volunteers may use some free programs to help speed up the entry process. We expect volunteers to make steady progress on their assignments, and we have the luxury of time right now to do it well.”
Learn more about the project here, and try the 1940 One-Step locational tools here.
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 18, 2013 | 01 What's New, FamilySearch, Irish, Records & databases
If you’ve got Irish roots and haven’t started exploring them, check out Irish Genealogy, recently re-launched by Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Beginners rejoice: you can read the site in English and there are helpful links on the lower left to introduce you to Irish research and records and to explain how the site works. You can search indexes to church records, the 1901 and 1911 census, tithe records, soldiers’ wills, the Ireland-Australia database and more.
Irish census, 1901, sample image from Irish Ancestors website.
According to Dick Eastman, the Irish government plans to put its own indexes to birth, death and marriage records (back to 1845) on the Irish Genealogy website. FamilySearch currently has an index to 23 million Irish Civil Registrations (1845-1958), which includes births, marriages and deaths, but excludes records for what became Northern Ireland after 1922. (They’ve also got lots of Irish court, tithe and prison records, too.)
It isn’t always easy to find your Irish ancestors–you may need to call on that proverbial Irish luck–but websites like these may very well be your own ancestral pot ‘o gold.
