According to the National Archives’ press release, “The DPLA is a large-scale, collaborative project across government, research institutions, museums, libraries and archives to build a digital library platform to make America’s cultural and scientific history free and publicly available anytime, anywhere, online through a single access point.
“The DPLA is working with several large digital content providers – including the National Archives and Harvard University – to share digitized content from their online catalogs for the project’s two-year Digital Hubs Pilot Project. This pilot project is scheduled to launch on April 18-19, 2013 at the Boston Public Library, which will host an array of festivities, including presentations and interactive exhibits showcasing content from the DPLA’s content partners. The DPLA will include 1.2 million digital copies from the National Archives catalog, including our nation’s founding documents, photos from the Documerica Photography Project of the 1970’s, World War II posters, Mathew Brady Civil War photographs, and documents that define our human and civil rights.”
If you’re like me, you’re wondering what genealogically-interesting documents will have a home on the DPLA. There’s a great blog post on the DPLA site that talks about partnerships with state and regional digital libraries, including the Kentucky Digital Library, which has more than 800,000 pages of newspapers, and over half a million pages of “books, photographs, archival materials, maps, oral histories and pages of other paginated publications.”
NOW we’re talking! The DPLA will certainly be a resource worth watching!
Users of WikiTree, a shared family tree website, will notice a new feature on the website now: Surname Following. Utilizing the new Wiki Genealogy Feed, users can enter specific surnames to follow. They’ll receive updates via email when other WikiTree users update information on that buy rabbit medication surname on a tree or comment on that surname in the WikiTree G2G (“Genealogist to Genealogist”) Q&A forum.
WikiTree is a free website that aims to grow a “single, worldwide family tree that will eventually connect us all and thereby make it free and easy for anyone to discover their roots.”
Sunny Morton, Genealogy Book Lovers Group Moderator and Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor
Lisa is all over RootsTech this year, teaching and running demos and–her favorite part–meeting many of YOU! So she’s asked me, Gems editor Sunny Morton, to send out a RootsTech Report for those of you who aren’t here.
In case you’re not familiar with this one-of-a-kind (and still evolving) conference, RootsTech is part traditional conference, part trade show. Top speakers teach technology-infused topics in packed classrooms. Industry leaders wow on the big stage, amplified by enormous monitors and sound systems.
Host FamilySearch International has pulled out all the stops to make the event bigger and better than last year: there are more attendees, more exhibitor space, more entertainment. A reported 6700 attendees preregistered, with an additional 2000 youth expected on Saturday and an estimated 5000 additional viewers tuning in to selected sessions at 16 satellite locations in 7 countries. With buy anxiety medication hopes to extend remote viewership in-language to ten times that number of locations next year, RootsTech is positioning itself as the world’s biggest and furthest-reaching genealogical conference.
Behind all the glamor, industry buzz, excitement of new services and products and everyday genealogists is a message FamilySearch is broadcasting to all who will listen: they want to recruit legions of new family historians who will preserve the stories of millions of lives. Though FamilySearch will continue to provide us millions of sources for dates-names-places, its new online family tree service is designed to capture stories, too, because that’s what makes genealogy meaningful to most of us.
We’ll tell you more about that–and other fun RootsTech updates–in upcoming posts. Meanwhile, tune in here wherever you are to join the fray: catch live streaming sessions and see what’s happening for yourself.
Many of us have books we loved when we were young. Maybe for you it was a picture book like Corduroy or a series like The Bobsey Twins, Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys. I would guess most of us read Dr. Seuss’ rhymes and enjoyed his whimsical illustrations.
Well, before there was Dr. Seuss, there was another children’s book author and illustrator who was equally loved: Peter Newell. I came across him on
Click on the link to read The Rocket by Peter Newell at read.gov.
the Library of Congress website and I thought he was very cool. One of his books, The Rocket, published in 1912, tells what happens when a janitor’s son lights a rocket in the basement of a 20-story apartment building and it shoots up through every floor!
When I see this book, I think of every kid who lived in an urban https://laparkan.com/buy-accutane/ apartment complex–like tenement housing–in the early 1900s and how they would have loved this book. It finds something magical about apartment living, which wasn’t always so pleasant in the days before air-conditioning, reliable elevators, sound insulation and building codes.
What books did you love as a kid? Have you shared them with the kids in your life today? Have you ever tried to learn something about the writer or illustrator? Have you asked the older folks in your family what books they loved and added those titles to your family archive? Give it a try–your family bookshelf can be a literary legacy for all ages to enjoy!
Learn more about how to utilize juvenile books in your family history in Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode #35.
Learn more about Peter Newell and his work in this article from American Magazine:
Do you think it’s complicated to remember the definition of a third cousin, or what it means to be twice removed? What if every relationship in the family had a different name? If there was one word to describe your paternal grandmother and another for your maternal grandmother? Different words for older and younger brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles? Apparently that’s the case for those with Chinese heritage! Whether you have Chinese roots or not, check out this video below and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Then, if you do have Chinese heritage, keep reading for a few get-you-started resources.
Chinese Heritage: Get Started
Want to start exploring your Chinese family history? Get started with FamilySearch’s introductory page on the topic (it’s in English). You’ll find brief explanations of Chinese geography, a helpful date converter, and information about where to research.
Next, move on to a more in-depth article, Jia Pu: Chinese Genealogical Record (An Introduction), where you’ll learn about clan genealogies that provide the basic written history of Chinese families. Then head back to the FamilySearch wiki for articles on specific topics: cemeteries and burial practices, immigration and emigration, notarial records and more (do a keyword search for “Chinese”). Finally, do you want to learn to research in Chinese? FamilySearch offers several free online courses in Chinese.
Here are a few online Chinese record collections:
China: Collection of Genealogies, 1239-2010. “Digital images of Chinese genealogies from various public and private collections. Although some genealogies include information on family branches that migrated to surrounding countries this collection covers families with roots in China. Chinese family genealogies list the origin of the family within China, where the family settled, and gives the generations of the family. Although some genealogies reach as far back as 1500 the time period and content of the records will vary from one genealogy to the next. Additional records may be added to this collection. Check the wiki or browse the collection to determine current coverage.” (FamilySearch.org, free.)
San Francisco, CA Chinese Applications for Admissions, 1903-1947. “This database contains descriptive lists of Chinese immigrants arriving at the port of San Francisco, California between 1903 and 1947. Information recorded in these documents includes: ship or vessel name, date of arrival, name, age, gender, marital status, occupation, nationality, last place of residence [and] final destination.” (Ancestry.com, world collection, $)
PA-Philadelphia Case Files of Chinese Immigrants, 1900-1923. “Case files for Chinese immigrants arriving through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1900-1923. Data includes the name, occupation, age, birthplace, ship name, date of arrival, and many other pieces of information. This collection corresponds to NARA publication M1144: Case Files of Chinese Immigrants, 1895-1920, from District No. 4 (Philadelphia) of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.” (FamilySearch.org, free)
North Dakota and Washington, Chinese Passenger Arrivals, 1903-1944. “Contained in this database are passenger arrival and disposition lists for Chinese immigrants between the years 1903 and 1944. The primary port of entry was Seattle, Washington; however, some additional entry ports, listed below, are also included in these records. Information that can be found includes surname, vessel name, arrival date, class or citizenship status, and whether the individual was admitted or denied. Ports of entry in these records: Seattle Washington, 1903–1944; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1911–1916 (in transit to U.S.), Sumas; Washington, 1903–1909; Portal, North Dakota, 1903–1910.” (Ancestry.com, world collection, $)
s of newspapers, and over half a million pages of “books, photographs, archival materials, maps, oral histories and pages of other paginated publications.”
Feed, users can enter specific surnames to follow. They’ll receive updates via email when other WikiTree users update information on that 
