FGS 2009 Is History

The 2009 FGS conference has come and gone. It was sad to say goodbye to friends, but my cat appreciated seeing me when I finally got home shortly before midnight last night. A lot of people have already blogged their conference experiences. I won't bore you too much with my experience which was quite different than most of the others simply because I was presenting and also working. I'm sure that I must have walked 10,000 miles each day. That may be a slight exaggeration, but my feet sure felt that I had! Little Rock had an abundance of places to get good food at a reasonable price within walking distance of the conference. Saturday night I ventured further afield with some genealogists who drove to the Whole Hog Cafe where I had some barbecue. When I came back, I hung out with a friend in her room for awhile before heading down to the hotel's piano lounge to hang out with my fellow genealogists. We stayed there until after midnight which must have been really hard on those with early flights on Sunday. Since my flight wasn't until 4 p.m., it wasn't a hardship for me. I've done as little as possible today so that I can be rested for my return to work tomorrow.

Make plans now to attend the 2010 FGS Conference in Knoxville. It will be held August 18-21.

Save the Library of Michigan

At last week's Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Little Rock, we were made aware of an online petition aimed at keeping the Library of Michigan's collections in tact. A governor's order is set to go into effect on October 1 if the legislature does not act quickly. You do not have to be a resident of Michigan to sign this petition.

SNGF: Ancestors I Met

Randy has challenged us to name the ancestors we had an opportunity to meet in tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Since I don't want to name living ancestors, I will omit my parents, but that is 2.

The only others I met were my 4 grandparents. That's what I get for being born so long after my brothers!

Paternal Grandparents:

James Thomas "Tom" Thornton (1893-1977). He lived in Monroe County, Mississippi his entire life.

Nona Josiah "Jodie" Fowlkes (1894-1974). She lived in Monroe County, Mississippi her entire life as well. Interesting story of how she got her middle name. Her father died the night before she was born so she was named for him.

Maternal Grandparents:

Irving Lee Lantz (1885-1971). He was born in McLean County, Illinois and moved to Monroe County, Mississippi in late 1896. He actually did not have a "real name" but the family just called him "Mose" or "Moses." Before he moved to Mississippi, he named himself after a traveling salesman who came by his father's dry goods store in Carlock.

Gillie Mae Hester (1893-1993). She lived in Monroe County, Mississippi her entire life. She was a twin, but her twin Lillie Faye died at nine months of age. "Nanny" as all of us grandkids called her had been kicked in the eye by a horse as a child, and there was noticeable damage around her eye area from that childhood injury. She lived a long life, but she didn't quite make it long enough for Willard Scott to recognize her.

So - I met a total of 6 of my ancestors. That's fewer than Randy. My older brothers only met one of their great grandparents, but both were probably too young to remember the encounter as they would have been aged 2 years 5 months and aged 5 months respectively.

I'm glad Randy's genealogy fun was quick and easy tonight because I've got to finish the laundry and get started packing. My presentations for FGS are all finalized. I hope to meet some of you. I'll be the one running around most of the time.

Discovering a New Web Site Today

First of all, let me say that this is my 1000th blog post! I never dreamed that my 1000th blog post would be about a Web site and how I discovered it, but here it is!

As I was driving home from church today, I got behind a SUV (or it may have been a mini-van -- I honestly don't remember) that had a most unusual back window. Sprawled across the back of it was a URL, a huge tree, and 4 gravestones. The gravestones are enough to catch the attention of almost any genealogist. [The four markers on the back of the window contained 3 men who are dead and whose bones remain interred and One who only needed a borrowed tomb for a short period of time before He rose again! He wasn't there long enough to have a marker.]

Naturally, I had to check out the Web site when I got home. It is called GraveSiteGenealogy.com and is a cemetery photographing project. It presently offers photographs of 205 cemeteries in six states -- California, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. From the FAQ, it appears that they are charging for the site but will be providing free access at Family History Centers and to persons who submit headstone photos. What they call "core information" will be free even though there would be a charge for viewing the photos. I'm really not sure that a fee-charging cemetery photo site will be around for long when there are other places online where persons may view photos for free. I did look at one photo, and the quality of the image did not appear to be high enough for me to want to pay to access others.

I really don't know much about the site or the persons operating it other than the fact that they were driving down Highway 11E in front of me today. The site really appears to have been neglected recently as the most up-to-date note on the progress blog is over a year old.

On Heritage Festivals

As I was reading through some news feeds that came into my blog reader today, I noticed a story about a Heritage Fest. I will not name the location or the newspaper in which the story appeared because this is not a post about that locality or that paper's coverage of that event at all, but more of a reflection on what a Heritage Festival should be. However, it appeared to me that the festival had very little to do with heritage. As presented in the story, all of the events seemed to have more to do with the present than with the past or with American culture rather than ethnic heritage. There were a few accompanying pictures which seemed to collaborate the conclusion I had drawn.

I began to think about things that I might expect in a Heritage Festival. I will start with what I perceive to be the purpose of such a festival. A heritage festival should either connect one with the early settlers of an area or celebrate the ethnic heritage of the settlers of an area.

How can one achieve the purpose? Let's look at a few ideas.

Live demonstrations - I've seen people demonstrate the various jobs that people might have had in settlement periods. Someone might show how a blacksmith made horseshoes or other items. Another person might demonstrate how a grist mill operated. (This, of course, is assuming that there is a preserved and operational mill in the area.) Someone could demonstrate older methods of farming and planting. Someone might show spinning. Another might demonstrate making lye soap. Quilting, needlework, etc. could also be demonstrated. A demonstration of a one room schoolhouse could also be included. There are many other methods to achieve this.

Speakers - Speakers could provide talks on various subjects related to everyday life, to the history and settlement of the area, to the ethnicity of the area, etc. Of course as a genealogist, I'd like to see one of the speakers address the subject of finding one's own family history. Speakers could also include storytellers who can relate the heritage of the area in an entertaining manner.

Drama - A play based on the settlement of the area or about one of immigration to the area could certainly be a huge hit with the crowds.

Rides or Transportation Exhibits - Wagon rides, train rides, stagecoach rides, or horseback rides would be appropriate for many areas. Places near bodies of water might want to offer a few more options involving old ships and boats, rafts, ferries, etc. If making the ride available will not work out, at least make some exhibits available.

Exhibits - Exhibits of farm implements, old needlework, quilts, old artwork, medical implements (and maybe even leeches), spinning wheels, early laundry items, old cookstoves, animal hides, historic hunting equipment, historic portraits and photographs, things people might have brought from the "old country," etc.

Food - No festival is complete without food! Have foods that the settlers of an area or the ethnic immigrants to the area might have eaten.

While this is certainly not a comprehensive list, it does provide a few options that might have truly made the festival into one which truly celebrated heritage.

StoryCorps is coming to the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference: Make your reservation today!

StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening, is coming to 2009 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas on September 2-4.

By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity. Since 2003, tens of thousands of everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress. Millions listen to our award-winning broadcasts on public radio and the Internet. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, creating a growing portrait of who we really are as Americans.

To learn more about StoryCorps visit their website. <www.storycorps.org>

Visit the FGS Conference Blog www.fgsconferenceblog.org for full details on making a reservation.


One important reminder -- Wednesday, August 26th is the last day to register online for the conference. You may still register at the door beginning at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 1st. Visit FGS' website at www.fgs.org to register.

Genealogical Spam?

Lately I've been receiving some "newsletters" from a company called AncestorStuff.com. [I am not going to make the link active for reasons which can be deduced from reading the remainder of this post.] I've been to a number of national conferences and never recall seeing them at one of these conferences. (That doesn't mean that my memory is not failing me, but I really don't recall seeing this company present.) According to their newsletter which offers mostly publications which one are available from Genealogical.com, they are headquartered in Dover, Arkansas. Since they are located in the same state as this year's FGS conference, I would expect to find a legitimate company listed among the exhibitors for the Little Rock conference. Were they on the list? No. The "slight" discount they are offering (for one title it is about 3%) is not worth the risk of doing business with what appears to be a company of questionable reputation. I've located comments on this company dating back about 5 years calling into question their "spamming." The general consensus seems to be that this company harvests e-mail addresses of persons interested in family history and "spams" them with their newsletters. I think I'd prefer to do business with a company that I trust. I'm more likely to trust a company which exhibits at a national conference. Spamming me with unsolicited e-mails advertising products (even products in which I may have an interest in purchasing) is not going to cause me to purchase them from a company about which I know nothing.

Has My Personality Changed?

Several of my Facebook friends had taken a quiz that was based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I've taken the real MBTI probably at least a half-dozen times (usually in a group setting), and my result has always been ENTP. Just for fun, I decided to take the Facebook quiz which is shorter than the actual MBTI questionnaire. To my surprise, I got a different result this time. I tested as an ENFP. That's only one marker difference, but when I'd actually taken the real questionnaire the last time (about 10 years ago), I had been a fairly strong "T." Needless to say, my result caught me by surprise. I remembered from some of my counseling classes that persons do sometimes differently, but it's usually on the markers that are borderline and not on one which tested fairly strong. I decided to take the quiz again just to make sure that I was really marking the way I would really react/feel. Once again I tested as ENFP. I began to question whether the quiz makers had omitted some of the questions that would affect my result. I had seen other people commenting that they usually tested as a T but had tested as an F this time. I went to the Myers-Briggs web site and read the T vs. F description. I saw myself more in the T than the F description there, but I could certainly see some F there. I contemplated taking the full version of the test online, but being the frugal person that I am, I decided it wasn't worth about $60 to determine if the Facebook quiz was flawed. I did, however, have one last recourse. I remembered that I still had an MBTI book from the late 1980s upstairs that discussed each personality profile in depth. I read through their description of T vs. F and decided that I really probably matched slightly better with an F than a T now. I read through their descriptions of both ENTP and ENFP and decided that I more closely resemble an ENFP than an ENTP nowadays. I guess people do change! In my case, I suppose that I've "softened" a little bit. I guess that having more empathy never hurt anyone, so I'll just go ahead and be happy with my result. Now (with my most recent MBTI results in mind) - which new genealogy project should I tackle before completing the others I have started?

East Tennessee Regional Preservation Conference

In today's mail, I got a brochure for a local conference that looks quite interesting. It's called "East Tennessee Regional Preservation Conference 2009." This year's theme is "The Peaceful Side of Preservation." For those of you who don't know it, this is a play on an advertising campaign that the region around Townsend in Blount County and Wears Valley in Sevierville have. In that campaign, they advertise that they are the "Peaceful Side of the Smokies." It appears that Knox Heritage is the main sponsor for the conference. Registration for the two day event which will be held September 18-19, 2009 at the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend is only $30 and includes a full year's membership in the East Tennessee Preservation Association. I'm quite excited about Friday's presentation on the town of Jonesborough. This is Tennessee's oldest town, and they've done a good job there in making that area come alive through preservation of both buildings and traditions such as storytelling. Saturday afternoon there is a workshop called "An Archaeological Perspective on Historic Cemetery Studies" which should be very interesting as well. These are just a couple of the sessions offered. The $30 for the conference and membership seems like a real bargain! (By the way, the student rate is $20.)

SNGF: 16 Great-Great-Grandparents

Randy has posted our Saturday night genealogy fun question(s):

1) List your 16 great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.

2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.

3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 - 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).

4) If you don't know all 16 of your great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.

5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.

Here are my 16 greats:

1. James M. Thornton (b. 16 Mar 1825, Jefferson Co., Ala.; d. 27 Aug 1913, Monroe Co., Miss.)
2. Lucinda Aldridge (b. abt. 1826-27, Alabama; d. 4 Sept 1855, Fayette Co., Ala.)
3. Thomas Duke (b. abt. 1828-29, Virginia; d. 1894, Monroe Co., Miss.)
4. Nancy/Nora Malinda Allred (b. 3 May 1843, prob. Shelby Co., Tenn.; d. 27 Nov 1926, Monroe Co., Miss.)
5. John E. Fowlkes (b. 3 Nov 1818, prob. Monroe Co., Miss.; d. 21 Aug 1862, Monroe Co., Miss.)
6. Elizabeth Parish (b. 17 Sept 1823, Virginia; d. 25 Oct 1896, Monroe Co., Miss.)
7. William David Phillips (b. abt. 1835-36, Alabama; d. Unknown)
8. Mary Elizabeth Fowlkes (b. 29 Mar 1843, Monroe Co., Miss.; d. Unknown)
9. Levi Lantz (b. 21 Jan 1811, Mifflin Co., Penn.; d. 23 Apr 1887, McPherson Co., Kans.)
10. Barbara Yoder (b. abt. 1817, Centre Co., Penn.; d. 14 Feb 1870, Howard Twp., Howard Co., Ind.)
11. Stephen Taylor (b. 28 Feb 1814, Marietta, Washington Co., Ohio; d. 20 Jun 1881, Hudson, McLean Co., Ill.)
12. Betsey Dearborn (b. 4 Sept 1818, Malta, Morgan Co., Ohio; d. 12 Mar 1899, Oklahoma Territory (buried in what is now Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Co., Okla.))
13. John H. Hester (b. 28 Dec 1812, South Carolina; d. 14 Nov 1879, Monroe Co., Miss
14. Nancy Cockrell (b. 1 Feb 1825, Greene Co., Ala.; d. 11 Feb 1907, Monroe Co., Miss.)
15. Walton A. Harris (b. 12 Nov 1812, prob. Wayne Co., Ky.; d. 24 Aug 1897, Itawamba Co., Miss.)
16. Margaret Mosely/Mosley/Mozley (b. 15 May 1822, Bedford Co., Tenn.; d. 14 Feb 1902, Itawamba Co., Miss.)

Of these sixteen, two are Amish and of Swiss origin. All others that I have "back across the pond" are British. It appears that the Hesters are of British Isles origin, but I cannot rule out German. Most people claim that the immigrant Fowlkes was born in Denbighshire, Wales, but it appears that they may have been in London before coming to America and no records supporting the Welsh origin have been found. It is possible that some of the brickwalled lines are of Scots-Irish origin, but nothing has been proven, and an English origin is also possible. It is, therefore, impossible to do a percentage of ethnicity calculation because of the difficulty of researching Southern lines. I can say that I'm 1/8 (or 12.5%) Swiss based on my 16 great-grandparents. I can also say that I'm more than 50% English. I will make no claims on the remainder. Maybe I should just say that I'm 100% American as all of my lines were in the United States before we became a nation and because all of my great-grandparents were "born in the U.S.A." (Someone should write a song!)

Choosing a Y-DNA Testing Company

Many of you know that I've recently assumed the role as administrator of the Thornton Y-DNA Project. In the short time in which I've been administrator, I've already encountered several people who have regretted their choice of DNA testing companies. Why? Because they chose what they thought was a good deal on a DNA test.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. You need to consider what your goals are when selecting a Y-DNA testing company. If your goal is to find matches with others having your same surname, then you need to find out which company that project is using.

The Thornton Y-DNA project uses FamilyTreeDNA. This decision was made years ago. Since that time, many other companies have come onto the scene. It's tempting to test with one of those when the price looks better. The problem is that by testing with another company, you have missed out on joining the surname DNA project and having your results in a common database for comparison. There are some options out there like Y-Search which allow persons who have tested with other companies to compare results and upload GEDCOMS, but it still does not make one a member of a surname project. FamilyTreeDNA will not put the results from other testing companies in the surname project databases for quality assurance reasons. (They, of course, have provided Y-Search as a comparison tool, but they still encourage persons who tested with other companies to have tests redone at a discounted rate. The link is available at Y-Search.) I would be remiss if I did not point out that FamilyTreeDNA does offer a Genographic Project conversion option which allows one to join a surname project in the process of transferring data.

Most of the DNA testing companies run specials from time to time. Be on the lookout for one of these great deals. Many of the project administrators will post this information to their project web sites (so keep checking those sites). Some will also post to messages boards or mailing lists if they are allowed to do so. (It's probably a little difficult to promote a FamilyTreeDNA test on a message board or mailing list hosted at competitor Ancestry, so you might want to check GenForum for those notifications.)

If you plan to join a surname project, get your Y-DNA testing done by the company they have selected. Don't make the mistake others have made by going with what outwardly appears to be a good deal but might not provide the desired outcome of your testing.

2009 East Tennessee History Fair

At the East Tennessee History Center , Krutch Park , and various downtown sites

August 22, 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

The East Tennessee Historical Society will celebrate our region’s history in a big way in Downtown Knoxville. On August 22 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., bring your friends and family to join in the excitement. Activities will include a living history timeline, historical and genealogical groups from our 35 counties, live traditional music, historical craft demonstrations, storytelling, children’s activities including Davy Crockett’s birthday party, trolley tours to downtown’s historic homes, old movies at the Bijou Theatre, Market Square Farmers Market, tours of the new exhibitions Voices of the Land: the People of Tennessee and Mountain Splendor: Art and Artists of the Great Smoky Mountains, 1850-1950, and much, much more. The event is free to the public.

The East Tennessee History Fair is sponsored by the Knoxville Central Business Improvement District (CBID) and Clayton Bank and Trust. The East Tennessee History Center is located at 601 S. Gay Street , Knoxville 37902 . For more information call 865.215.8824 or visit www.eastTNhistory.org. Look for more to come on this event in Newsline and future emails.

FGS Conference Press Release

Only a month left till genealogists descend on Little Rock!

In just a month, genealogists from all over the United States and beyond will be getting together in Little Rock for four full days of learning more about genealogy, finding cousins, seeing how much is online, seeing how much is not online, figuring out how to get the most out of records, determining what archives or libraries have the answers, helping your genealogy society, and spending some money in the large Exhibit Hall. Don’t let this event pass you by. The Arkansas Genealogical Society is the host for this event which is the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. You will be hearing about this event for years to come and will feel sad if you weren’t a part of it.

Syllabus
The syllabus consists of most of the lecture handouts and each registrant receives it on CD at the Conference. If you wish to receive a paper copy of the syllabus in addition to the syllabus on CD you must order it no later than August 1st. It will also be online before the conference but some prefer to have the full paper copy at the conference. Just order it online at www.FGSConference.org when you register for the conference. If you have already registered, go back to the registration page and add the paper syllabus for $20.00 using the PIN number you received when you registered.

Door prizes
Many of the vendors in the Exhibit Hall will be giving away conference door prizes. Each registrant will receive 20 door prize tickets with your conference name tag and syllabus CD at the registration booth. The ticket will ask for your name, mailing and e-mail addresses and phone number. Bring along some of those address labels you have sitting around or print some up before you leave home to save some writing. Each participating vendor will have a black box labeled for door prizes. Each attendee chooses which door prize box to drop their tickets in depending on the door prize being given. Some will have more than one door prize drawing during the three Exhibit Hall days. The names of the winners will be posted on a bulletin board in the Exhibit Hall. If you are a winner, all you need to do to claim your prize is to revisit the specific vendor’s booth.

Conference sessions to be recorded
Many of the conference sessions will be audio recorded and available for purchase on CD. Listings of those sessions being recorded will be available at the conference. Jamb-Inc. will be doing the recording and will have a booth where you can make your on-site purchases. The CDs will also be available after the conference from Jamb-Inc. but mailing fees will be charged.

Last minute Conference Information
Be sure to read the Conference News Blog during August and even during Conference Week to learn last minute details, reminders, suggested things to bring along, types of clothing to wear, and detail on special items. www.fgsconferenceblog.org. Some exciting special announcements will be made in the next couple of weeks on the blog!

See you at the conference.

Enjoying a Quilt Show

The American Quilter's Society held a show in Knoxville this past week. It ran from Wednesday through Saturday. I decided that it sounded like a fun thing to do. When I was younger, one of my sisters-in-law used to enter quilts into the Mid-South Fair in Memphis. She or her mother would often win first place. Many of today's quilts are more artistic than traditional quilts. That's not saying that the quilts that our great grandmothers made were not works of art. It's just to say that many of today's quilts are meant to be displayed on the wall and not cover a bed! At the show yesterday, I saw many examples of fine quilting -- both by hand and by machine. I'll have to admit that I'm partial to the hand quilting. The exhibit hall was full of displays of quilting machines. Every time I passed one of these machines, I thought of how much I preferred something that had been hand-quilted.

There were a number of interesting quilts. There were several exhibits by societies who had challenged members to compete with a certain theme. Many of these also had a certain fabric which had to be incorporated into the quilt. It was amazing to see how some of these executed their themes and to see how different each person used that fabric. Two of my favorite quilts were in the society challenges. One was a wall hanging of a poodle that had a window behind it. It was sort of whimsical, but was very cute. It had a lot of pinks in the quilt. My absolute favorite quilt was one which someone had used to tell the story of their family. There were birth dates, marriages, and other events included in the quilt. The quilter had done a great job recreating her family tree in a form that can be treasured by generations to come.

My biggest regret is that photography was not permitted. It would have been nice to have photos of some of those quilts on display. Many of them were for sale at prices that were beyond my budget although I would not have minded owning several of the ones that were on sale!

Oh - and my favorite order of arrangement of quilts was in one of the booths that was selling quilt patterns. They had patterns for various college sports teams and had finished products for many teams from the SEC and ACC on display. They had my two favorite teams side by side: University of Tennessee and Duke University! That vendor won brownie points!

Saturday Night Fun: 11 July 2009

Randy at GeneaMusings devises a Saturday night fun meme in which I rarely participate. However, this week's question interests me, so I decided to participate.

It's Saturday Night, time for some Genealogy Fun after your frustrating week of finding phantom ancestors in online family trees and trying to keep up with everybody on Twitter, Facebook and Genealogy Wise.

Here is your assignment for this Saturday Night (if you decide to accept it, of course - you can't have fun if you don't try):

1) Let's go time travelling: Decide what year and what place you would love to visit as a time traveller. Who would you like to see in their environment? If you could ask them one question, what would it be?

2) Tell us about it. Write a blog post, or make a comment to this post, or on Facebook, or in Genealogy Wise.

Now, let's see . . . the first thing I have to decide is if I'm going to go with the obvious and ask questions of a brick-walled ancestor or if I'm going to interview one of my more illustrious ancestors. I actually think that I'm going to go with someone that I think is a little more interesting and might have answers and a very interesting story about the brick wall on his line since he's not quite so far removed from it. You see, Stephen Taylor told some interesting stories about his life and adventures in The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois which is available full-text in Google books. You'll find his account starting on page 839 and running through page 845.

Stephen's father died too early for him to really hear very many stories first-hand, but he lived near relatives and associates who probably told him all about his father, grandfather, and about their journey to what was then Ohio County, Virginia. His mother and father were married in Washington County, Ohio. The family lived in nearby counties. Stephen himself married in Morgan County. My question to Stephen sometime around the year 1840 would simply be a very open-ended question: Tell me about your Taylor family. He was residing in McLean County, Illinois by that time. Now, I'm taking a chance by asking him that because he could go just about any direction he wished, but being the storyteller that he appears to be, I'm sure that I would get some stories that would help me to positively match his father Stephen who was born in 1780 in New York with the correct Isaac Taylor, his grandfather, who was born ca. 1750. I have a sneaky suspicion that Isaac was born in the Berkshires and migrated along with the Rathbones down to Ohio County, Virginia by way of New York. It's really a shame that I've been unable to locate any service records for his father Stephen who supposedly enlisted in the war of 1812 "at the last call for volunteers" and died of disease in Detroit.

Thoughts on Genealogy-Specific Social Networking

This week we heard about a new social network that is specifically designed for those researching family history. The network is called Genealogy Wise or GenealogyWise. (They originally did not have a space, and now they do.) It's really not officially debuting until July 17, but hundreds of folks researching their ancestry have already flocked there.

My initial reaction was, "Why would I want another social network that I would have to visit on a daily basis that limits itself to only one group of my friends?" After signing up for the site out of curiosity, my initial reaction remains unchanged.

I am unimpressed with the "groups" which seem to be nothing other than queries for the most part that are already handled well by genealogy message boards and mailing lists. I have to admit that I started one group just so I could see exactly what administrative options were present. I am absolutely unimpressed with many of the undocumented family group sheet style posts that are being posted to the groups.

I joined one group on the first day. About the second day, there were about 20 people who were members of the group. I decided to glance through the membership and see how many were members of the corresponding state society and of APG. I was the only person signed up for the group who was a member of either. That told me something about this new social networking site because I knew it had been advertised to professional genealogists.

This social network is sponsored by FamilyLink. I've seen it reported on other blogs that they are paying some people to generate content. Unfortunately it is being buried under the deluge of queries being posted.

I really prefer Facebook for social networking because most of my genealogy friends as well as friends from church, high school, college, and other parts of my life are members. If I want to post a query, I'll do it on a message board.

Am I leaving GenealogyWise? Not yet. I'm not saying that I won't in the future. I'm giving it a chance. At the moment, it is not useful for me.

Cataloging Your DVDs Online

I took a couple of hours today to try out two DVD cataloging sites. I used to belong to DVDSpot, but the developers of that site took everything offline in October 2007. I had located a couple of alternatives, but I'd never gotten around to testing them out. I decided to take a box of DVDs and try my hand at cataloging them on the two sites.

The first site I tried was DVD Count. This site's developer had been a DVDSpot user and needed a solution to manage his own DVDs so he developed one. I was hoping for more similarities with DVDSpot, but I found this site a bit clunky to use. I found myself manually having to enter about 10% of the titles in the portion of the box that I added to this site. One of the things that I really disliked about the entry form is that it defaulted to Afghanistan as the country. I accidentally forgot to change one of my manual entries, and there was no way to edit my error. I did like the detail that was included in the entries; however, it was a bit uneven because many of the entries were made by other users who provided varying levels of completeness to the record. I really don't blame them for skipping many of the fields because to a non-techy person, many of them were daunting and probably seemingly irrelevant. There was a place to add a cover image as you added entries.

The second site I tried was DVD Corral. I loved the ease of adding items. Their database seemed much more complete, but I also noted that some titles came up with incorrect titles. For example, Greater Vision Live at First Baptist Atlanta came up as Live at First Atlanta. Greater Vision wasn't even listed as performer and the word "Baptist" was omitted. There was no way to edit this. There was also no way to manually add an entry. You were prompted to send a message to the webmaster about the missing title, but that's kind of frustrating. There needs to be a way to edit an entry, and there needs to be a way to add an entry.

Online DVD cataloging sites are just not as friendly or as social as some of the book cataloging sites like LibraryThing. I think Tim and his crew need to come up with DVDThing! I'm not completely happy with either of the sites I used today.

Amusing Headline of the Day

If it took them two days to figure out that they'd even had a 2.0 earthquake, I hardly think that it ROCKED Loudon County.

ABC Book Meme

For this meme, you list a favorite book that starts with each letter of the alphabet. If you don't have a book for a letter (such as Z or X) than you can substitute a favorite book that simply has that letter in the title (ex. The Lost City of Z or Hot Six by Janet Evanovich). However, you can only do this a maximum of 3 times. (Z, X, and Q. But not Z, X, Q, and V.) Books can be of any genre from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to textbooks. (via Boston Bibliophile)

I decided to try to do mine with all genealogy and history titles. It was actually difficult to try to stop with just one title per letter in many cases! I was glad that I had my books cataloged in LibraryThing where I could sort by title. I only had to take advantage of the substitution rule for the letters X and Z. (I did have a book in my library that began with a Z, but it was a children's book called Zoo Book and did not fit with my genealogy/history theme.)

A: Ancestry’s Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources by Alice Eichholz

B: BCG Genealogical Standards Manual by Board of Certification for Genealogists

C: Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Grants and Patents by Nell Marion Nugent

D: DNA and Genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick

E: Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills

F: First Alabama Cavalry USA: Homage to Patriotism by Glenda McWhirter Todd

G: Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case by Christine Rose

H: Handybook for Genealogists by George B. Everton

I: Inheritance in Colonial Virginia by Barbara Vines Little

J: John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader by Robert E. May

K: King Phillip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict by Eric B. Schultz

L: Library of Congress: A Guide to Genealogical and Historical Research by James C. Neagles

M: Map Guide to the U. S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920 by William Thorndale and William Dollarhide

N: North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History by Helen F. M. Leary

O: Obituaries in American Culture by Janice Hume

P: Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers and Librarians by Elizabeth Shown Mills

Q: Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689-1776 by Jack P. Greene

R: Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood

S: Seeds of Discontent: The Deep Roots of the American Revolution, 1650-1750 by J. Revell Carr

T: They Came in Ships: A Guide to Finding Your Immigrant Ancestor’s Arrival Record by John Philip Colletta

U: Understanding and Using Baptismal Records by John T. Humphrey

V: Vital Records of Hampton, New Hampshire: To the End of the Year 1900 by George Freeman Sanborn

W: War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict by Donald R. Hickey

*X: Essex County Deeds, 1639-1678, Abstracts of Volumes 1-4 by Essex Society of Genealogists

Y: Ye Heart of a Man: The Domestic Life of Men in Colonial New England by Lisa Wilson

*Z: Lantz Family Record: Being a Brief Account of the Lantz Family in the United States of America by Jacob W. Lantz

A Different Point of View

Most of the time when I have read fictional books about the Japanese-American internment experience during World War II, it has been from the point of view of one of those interned. Jamie Ford offers us a different perspective in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. The hotel is the Panama Hotel in Seattle, Washington where restorers discover belongings left behind by some of the Japanese-Americans who were evacuated. Henry Lee, a Chinese-American, sees someone bringing out a parasol that he is certain belonged to Keiko Okabe, his very special Japanese friend from school. Back in 1942 he and Keiko had been very special friends even though his father, a Chinese businessman, had a very strong dislike for the Japanese. Henry goes into the hotel where he locates, with the help of his son, Keiko's sketchbook and a record that had meant a lot to Keiko and himself. This is Henry and Keiko's story, told from Henry's perspective. It shows the reader that the Japanese were not the only ones affected by this dark chapter in American history. After a stay at a temporary camp, Keiko's family was relocated to Minidoka in Idaho. Although this book was fictitious, the Minidoka War Relocation Center was a real place. The site is now part of the National Park System. Chapter 9 of Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites tells about Minidoka in great detail. Although it is named Minidoka, it was actually nearer Jerome. Friends of Minidoka also has some interesting historical information on this facility. Their further reading page lists several resources that would be useful for persons researching ancestors who were relocated to Minidoka. I located a map on this site of war relocation facilities. I know that I have read books set in Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah. I think the thing that surprised me most is that two were located in Arkansas. This might be an interesting topic to pursue when I'm in Little Rock for FGS if I have time.