Why Was the Information Removed from Online?

Dick Eastman · June 17, 2016 · Uncategorized · 6 Comments

NOTE: This is a slightly updated version of an article I published about a year ago. A couple of newsletter readers have sent messages to me in the past few days expressing dissatisfaction with records that were available online but recently have disappeared. I am offering this republished article as an explanation about why we should not be surprised when that happens. I will also offer a suggestion as to making sure you keep your own copies of online records that are valuable to you.

Two newsletter readers sent email messages to me recently expressing dissatisfaction that a set of images of vital records has been removed from a popular genealogy site. Indeed, removal of any online records of genealogical value is sad, but not unusual. Changes such as these are quite common on FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Ancestry.com, Fold3, FindMyPast, and many other genealogy sites that provide old records online. Removal of datasets has occurred dozens of times in the past, and I suspect such things will continue to happen in the future. I thought I would write a brief explanation.


In most cases, information of genealogical value obtained from government agencies, religious groups, museums, genealogy societies, and other organizations is provided under contractual agreements. The contracts specify what information is to provided, how it is to be made available, and what price the web site has to pay to the provider for the records. All contracts also have a defined expiration date, typically 2 years or 3 years or perhaps 5 years after the contract is signed.

When a contract nears expiration, the two parties usually attempt to renegotiate the contract. Sometimes renewal is automatic, but more often it is not. Maybe the information provider (typically an archive) decides they want more money, or maybe they decide they no longer want to supply the data to the online genealogy service. For instance, in the time the information has been available online, the information provider may have learned just how valuable the information really is. The information provider may decide to ask for more money or may even refuse to provide the information any more since the provider may have a NEW plan to create their own web site and offer the same information online on their new site for a fee.

Sure, that stinks for those of us who would like to have the information everywhere; but, it makes sense to most everyone else. I am sure the budget officer at most any state or local government archive thinks it makes sense.
Every contract renegotiation is different, but it is not unusual to agree to disagree. The contract ends, and the web site provider legally MUST remove the information from their web site. The same thing frequently happens to all the other online sites that provide old records online.

Moral of this story: If you find a record online that is valuable to you, SAVE IT NOW! Save it to your hard drive and make a backup copy someplace else as well. If there is no option to save, make a screen shot and save it on your hard drive or some other place where it will last for many years. Just because you can see the record online today does not mean that it will be available tomorrow.

Join the Nationwide Service Project “Finding the Fallen”

Dick Eastman · June 6, 2016 · Preservation · 3 Comments

Boy Scouts, members of the United States Armed Forces, all genealogists, and the American public are invited to help preserve the memories of our fallen veterans by photographing and logging veteran memorials and headstones throughout the United States. Since I am a veteran of the US military, this project also means a lot to me. I plan to participate. If you have any Boy Scouts in the family, you might want to forward this announcement to them and to their leaders.

The following announcement was written by Melany Gardner:

Boy Scouts and members of the United States Armed Forces are invited to participate in a nationwide service project, “Finding the Fallen,” Saturday, July 30. This service project will help preserve the memories of our fallen veterans by photographing and logging veteran memorials and headstones throughout the United States.

Troops, teams and crews are all invited to participate as volunteers to take photographs or help organize the local event. Aspiring Eagle Scouts, as approved by their local council or district, can also apply to lead the local service project. Anyone wishing to participate in the project can sign up here.

What is the Finding the Fallen Project?

The men and women of the past sacrificed, and many gave their lives for their country. This summer, Scouts have the unique opportunity not only to “help other people at all times,” but to help other people from all times. Saturday, July 30, 2016 has been designated as the day for “Finding the Fallen.” We invite you and your troop to do a good turn by doing your part on this important day.

Boy Scouts, in conjunction with the United States Armed Forces and BillionGraves, will be honoring the sacrifice of the brave men and women who have given their lives in defense of our freedom. You can help honor their sacrifice by ensuring that they are never forgotten. By joining in the project, you and your troop will serve these heroes by photographing and logging the GPS locations of the headstones and markers in our national cemeteries and uploading them to the BillionGraves.com website using the app on smart phones.

After the photographs are uploaded, you, along with many other volunteers, will have the opportunity to transcribe the records. Once completed, these records will be accessible to the public via BillionGraves.com and other genealogical sites for free. The free BillionGraves GPS app will guide anyone to these gravesites, allowing those who have fallen to be found. The general public will be able to add photos, obituaries, histories and other tributes to the various records as they wish, thus ensuring these veterans are never forgotten.

This is a great way to complete requirement #7 for the Citizenship in the Community merit badge or requirement #2 for the Citizenship in the Nation merit badge. Many Boy Scouts have used this as their Eagle Scout project. BillionGraves provides great resources to ensure a positive leadership experience for the Eagle Scout. For more information for aspiring Eagle Scouts, go here.

Watch a Video

How to Get Started?

1. Decide today to help honor these brave men and women Saturday, July 30, 2016 and sign up here. BillionGraves.com will send you more information on how to plan and carry out your project.
2. Choose a local veteran memorial or cemetery. If selecting a cemetery in Utah, check that the cemetery hasn’t already been logged here.
3. Be prepared to organize, plan or participate in “Finding the Fallen” at the local cemetery July 30th.
4. Transcribe the photographed headstones.

For questions about the “Finding the Fallen” project, contact BillionGraves at eagle@billiongraves.com.

FREE LIVE Streaming CLasses from SCGS June 3 through June 5

Jamboree 2016: Registration Now Open for FREE Jamboree Live Streaming

 To Register for the FREE STREAMING CLASSES FRIDAY THRU SUNDAY FOR THE SO CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, GO TO http://streaming.webcastandbeyond.com/jamboree/

The schedule for the FREE live streaming 

from the 47th Annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree.  

Registration is now open!

We are very grateful to our Diamond Sponsor, Ancestry, which is underwriting the cost of the Jamboree live stream. With their support, SCGS is able to bring you 14 hours of high-quality family history education absolutely free. Handouts will be provided with each session.

The live-streamed sessions from Jamboree are listed below. Session descriptions, speaker bios, suggested experience levels and schedule details are available on the Jamboree website.  Times Below have been converted from PDT to CDT (2 hours ahead)

Friday, June 3

3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. FR008  German Immigrant Waves: Contrasts and Sources by James M.Beidler 
  
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. FR018  Problems and Pitfalls of a “Reasonably Shallow” Search by  Elissa Scalise Powell, CG®, CGL®

6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. FR027  Tracking Migrations and More: The Records of Old Settler Organizations by Paula Stuart- Warren, CG®, FMGS, FUGA 

7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. FR035  Principles of Effective Evidence Analysis by George Goodloe Morgan 

Saturday, June 4

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. SA009  Getting Started with Eastern European Research by  Lisa A. Alzo, MFA 

12:00 noon. - 1:00 p.m. SA018  Be Your Own Digital Archivist: Preserve Your Research by  Cyndi Ingle 

1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. SA022  German Names: Their Origins, Meaning and Distribution by C. Fritz Juengling, PhD, AG®

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. SA032  Using Military Pension Files to Fill Gaps in Family History by   J. H. Fonkert, CG®  

5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. SA037  Maximizing Your Use of Evidence by Thomas Wright Jones, PhD, CG®, CGL®, FASG, FUGA, FNGS  

7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. SA052  German Genealogy on the Internet: Beyond the Basics by Michael D. Lacopo, DVM  

Sunday, June 5

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.  SU009  The Firelands, the Connecticut Western Reserve and the Ohio Territory by Peggy Clements Lauritzen, AG®

12:00 noon. - 1:00 pm SU010  Avoiding Shiny Penny Syndrome with Your Genealogy by  Tessa Ann Keough 

2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. SU027  All Aboard: Staying on Track with Your Research by Barbara M. Randall 

4 pm - 5 p.m. SU031  U. S. Passport Applications by Debbie Mieszala, CG®

If you can't watch a session in real-time as it is being live streamed, you will be able to watch it at your convenience before July 5, 2016, on the live stream website (not to be confused with the SCGS website and the Extension Series Webinar archives available for SCGS members).

Registration for the pay-per-view and free Jamboree sessions will remain open through July 5, 2016 when the special archive will close. 

·  Each registration will generate a confirmation email containing your username (email) and automatically generated password.

·  Jamboree live streaming is FREE and available to the public, but viewers need to register. Preferably in advance.

I Have My Tree Back to Adam--do you really?

“I Have My Family Tree Back to Adam and Eve”

Dick Eastman · April 21, 2016 · Genealogy Basics · 26 Comments

This is another bit of fiction that needs to be wiped out. I have often heard people (I won’t call them “genealogists”) at various times make the claim they have traced their family tree back to Adam and Eve. Of course, the “documentation” is always sketchy.

Robert C. Gunderson was a Senior Royalty Research Specialist, of the Church Genealogical Department, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). He was an expert in medieval genealogy and started the Royalty Identification Unit in 1972. He passed away in 2003. However, before his death, Gunderson once was asked if such research was possible. He replied:

“The simplest answer is No. Let me explain. In thirty-five years of genealogical research, I have yet to see a pedigree back to Adam that can be documented. By assignment, I have reviewed hundreds of pedigrees over the years. I have not found one where each connection on the pedigree can be justified by evidence from contemporary documents. In my opinion it is not even possible to verify historically a connected European pedigree earlier than the time of the Merovingian Kings (c. a.d. 450–a.d. 752).

“Every pedigree I have seen which attempts to bridge the gap between that time and the biblical pedigree appears to be based on questionable tradition, or at worst, plain fabrication. Generally these pedigrees offer no evidence as to the origin of the information, or they cite a vague source.”

François Weil, a director of studies (professor) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and currently the chancellor of the universities of Paris, is another expert in medieval pedigrees who agrees. Weil provides authoritative answers to these questions in his book Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America (2013) published by Harvard University Press.

Both Gunderson and Weil agreed: European royal pedigrees cannot be verified before the 500s A.D.

To learn more, read:

Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. By François Weil. Published by Harvard University Press, Online bookstore; 2013. ISBN 9780674045835. 320 pp. Indexes. Hardcover. $27.95 • £20.95 • €25.20. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045835 or available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook or as in a hardcover book at http://goo.gl/12RlV4.

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is Still Available! by Dick Eastman

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is Still Available! 

For the entire article and comments, please visit https://blog.eogn.com/2016/05/12/the-social-security-death-index-ssdi-is-still-available/

 Dick Eastman · May 12, 2016 · Genealogy Basics · 6 Comments

The Social Security Death Index (often called the SSDI) is a valuable tool for genealogists. It lists deceased people within the United States. When first created, the SSDI only listed those people who were receiving Social Security benefit payments at the time of death. However, as the years went by, the database was expanded to include ALMOST ALL DEATHS, whether receiving benefits or not.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) Death Master File (DMF) contains more than 80 million records of deaths that have been reported to SSA. This file includes the following information on each deceased person, as applicable: name, date of birth, date of death, state or country of residence (prior to Mar 1988), and ZIP code of last residence.
Due to false concerns over identity theft, the Social Security Administration stopped releasing updates to the SSDI a few years ago. A few web sites that previously had made the SSDI available online have since deleted the records from their web sites. Now many genealogists believe the SSDI is no longer available.
Not true! The SSDI hasn’t been “lost.” It is still available in several places today, and you can search it online.

In fact, the Social Security Administration has stopped issuing UPDATES to the Death Master File. However, the original database, current through January 2011, remains in the public domain and is still available online from a number of web sites. Later deaths are not publicly listed, however.

NOTE #1: Genealogists have always referred to this database of deceased persons as the “SSDI.” However, employees of the Social Security Administration and many others call it the Death Master File, or DMF. The reason for the discrepancy in names appears to be confusion with another service of the Social Security Administration.

If you mention “the SSDI” to an employee of the Social Security Administration, he or she will probably think you are referring to Social Security Disability Insurance, something that is unrelated to the Death Master File except that both are available from the Social Security Administration. When talking with non-genealogists, you probably should always refer to this database as the “Death Master File.”

NOTE #2: In most cases, only the first ten letters of each individual’s first name are shown in the SSDI. For instance, the name “Christopher” is abbreviated as “Christophe”. Also, middle initials are shown, but complete middle names are not recorded in the database. The search rules will vary from one web site to another. I find it best to only enter the first ten letters of longer names. That seems to always work. Entering all the letters of first names with more than ten letters sometimes results in a “not found” error on some web sites although not on others. When in doubt, use only ten letters.

NOTE #3: Not all the online databases will display all the available information about the person listed in the SSDI. You may have to try several online services in order to find what you seek.

NOTE #4: Information about geographic allocation of Social Security numbers can be found at http://www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm. Keep in mind that Social Security Numbers used to be assigned by the location where the Number was ISSUED, not by the place of birth of the individual.

I suggest you access the Social Security Death Index (Death Master File) at any of the following:

MyHeritage: https://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-10002/us-social-security-death-index-ssdi

Steve Morse’s One Step Genealogy: http://www.stevemorse.org/ssdi/ssdi.html

FamilySearch: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535

Ancestry: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693 (Ancestry allows anyone to view a short version of the record, but viewing all the details requires a subscription to Ancestry.com.)

GenealogyBank: http://www.genealogybank.com/explore/ssdi/all (You must be a paid subscriber of GenealogyBank to view the details of each record.)

American Ancestors operated by the New England Historic Genealogical Society: http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/social-security-death-index/about/ (That page states, “Access to the SSDI is FREE to all who visit AmericanAncestors.org.” However, you must either register for a FREE guest account or pay for a subscription to view your SSDI search results.

WorldVitalRecords.com: http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/indexinfo.aspx?ix=ssdiall&affpid=1022 (Requires an account with WorldVitalReords.com. However, a FREE 7-day trial account is available.)

NOTE: Also included in the WorldVitalRecords.com version of the SSDI is See Neighbors which is a list of those persons who died during the same year and in the same zip code as the deceased who is being searched. Finally, when a residence at death is included in a listing, a geo-coded Google Map is included with the place where the person died and their nearest cemeteries.

… and probably some other places as well.

You also can download the entire SSDI record set yourself at http://ssdmf.info/download.html although that is the 30 November 2011 edition. No later records are available.

75 Best Websites for US State Genealogy Research in 2015

75 Best Websites for US State Genealogy Research in 2015 

(Family Tree magazine Online)

11/9/2015

By Rick Crume

Any way you slice it, these 75 top state-focused websites are must-visits for tracing your ancestors across the United States.

 Click here to see these 75 top websites for all 50 states!

South Dakota

South Dakota Birth Records
This index holds information from more than 275,000 records of South Dakota births that occurred at least 100 years ago, including many delayed birth certificates that were issued for people born before statewide registration began in 1905.

South Dakota State Historical Society

Find your ancestors in the Mount Rushmore State with the help of these indexes to naturalizations, cemetery records, the 1905 state census and biographies, plus a transcript of the 1885 census of Civil War veterans.

U.S. National Archives Launches History Hub

U.S. National Archives has Recently Launched a History Hub

Dick Eastman · January 20, 2016 · Online Sites · One Comment

The National Archives and Records Administration has recently launched a FREE History Hub, an online research support community, where members of the public can ask questions about research at NARA. The new site is a pilot for the next 6 months, and hopefully will be fully funded after that time. However, there is no guarantee of that.
There’s a dedicated Genealogy section in the History Hub. To access it, go to https://historyhub.archives.gov/welcome and register for an account, and then you can contribute in any way that you’d like!

Treasures in Your Own Back....Post Office 2600 Letters from 17th Century Unopened

Rediscovered Leather Trunk Contains Thousands of Letters From the 17th Century

Dick Eastman · November 11, 2015 · History · No Comments

Talk about the Dead Letter Office! A 300-year-old linen-lined trunk filled with over 2,600 letters that were mailed out—but never received—between the years 1680 and 1706 has recently been discovered in The Hague, Netherlands. The extraordinary collection contains letters from all manner of society, including aristocrats, merchants, lovers, actors, musicians, and even spies. At least 600 of the 2,600 letters have never even been opened. Historians are now taking a closer look.

An international team from Leiden, Oxford, MIT, and Yale are taking part in this project. You can read more about the historians’ study of the letters in a web site called Signed, Sealed, & Undelivered at http://brienne.org and especially at http://brienne.org/press-kit.

What IS the Internet Archive and how NOT to search it?

From the previous post, you now know that Internet Archive aka THE WAYBACK MACHINE is the place to go for a LOT of raw data, digital archives, digitized films, etc, but how to search it--here's an article on how NOT to search it with specific instructions on what to do--it's lengthy but worth it.

Courtesy of Ancestry Insider at http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2015/09/how-to-navigate-around-internet-archive.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AncestryInsider+%28The+Ancestry+Insider%29
 

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

How to Navigate Around the Internet Archive Search Bug

There is a bug in Internet Archive’s “Search Inside” a book feature. Don’t trust it. Let me tell you what to do instead.
Let’s say you found your way to a book on Internet Archive (IA). It is A Complete History of Fairfield County, Ohio (at https://archive.org/details/cu31924028848483) by Hervey Scott. You want to see if Jonas Messerly is mentioned in it. You select the search magnifying glass up in the upper-right corner.

You search for “Messerly” and, oops, you just searched IA for titles rather than searching inside that single title.

Wait, don’t cuss me out yet; that’s not the bug. That’s just user error and a user interface annoyance.
You find another search magnifying glass icon on the right-hand side about half way down the page. The context help popup says “search inside.” You select the icon.

The page changes a bit and the search icon disappears.

Instead of instigating a search, what you’ve just done is switched from one book viewer to another. People  in the know tell me that this failure to search is not a bug. Because the design is supposed to do this, it is a WAD, “working as designed.” Fine. Let’s compromise and call it a user interface flaw. But this is still not the bug of which I speak.
The search inside icon has disappeared. The search-all-of-IA box is still up in the upper-right corner of the screen. You fell for that one once before. “Fool me once…” After looking in vain for another search icon, you notice that the search box you previously dismissed, the one that searched for book titles, is now labeled “Search inside”.

Also not the bug of which I speak. It’s another user error and user interface annoyance.
Now comes the bug. You search for “Messerly” and IA erroneously states “No matches were found.”

Rather than depend on just the “Search Inside” results, check the raw text. To do this, select the italic I—the “About this book” icon. In the popup, select Plain Text. That brings you to a page containing the raw text from the book. Now use your browser search (^F) to search for Messerly.

There he is on page 73. Now back up to the book viewer and advance to page 73.

One of the distinct advantages of Internet Archive over Google Books is that downloaded PDF files are searchable. I tested the above book and found that Adobe Reader is not affected by the search bug. You can download from IA with the confidence that your offline study will not be affected.

Be aware that OCR errors are unaffected by any of this. If a word was not recognized when scanned, then all of these methods will fail to find it.
Finally, the Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that accomplishes amazing things with very little money. No one should be surprised that there are flaws in their software. We are all in their debt. They accept contributions at https://archive.org/donate.

Microfilm at Your Fingertips (Not just at FamilySearch)

 Courtesty of OliveTree Genealogy by Lorine McGinnis Schulz 

September 30, 2015

Microfilm at Your Fingertips!

How many of you remember "the good old days" pre-Internet when we spent hours in libraries and archives scrolling through microfilm in a dark room? I sure do! 

Now, thanks to The Internet Archive, (part of the WayBack Machine) microfilm is coming right to your computer! Here is their description of the focus of this project:

As books become old and begin to fall apart, librarians depend on microform to preserve their content for the future. Tiny photographs on long strips of film (microfilm) or small cards of film (microfiche) are all that remain of hundreds of thousands of documents that have disintegrated over the last century. While microfilm is perfect for storing and protecting this material, it is a does not allow for much access. In following its mission to provide universal access to all human knowledge, the Internet Archive is teaming up with libraries all over the world to begin digitizing microfilm and microfiche. The goal is to get as much content off the shelves and online.

The books in this collection are from a variety of libraries including the University of Chicago Libraries, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Alberta, Allen County Public Library, and the National Technical Information Service.
You may also want to view the newspapers that have been digitized from microfiche.

So don't wait, click over to https://archive.org/details/microfilm and let your fingers do the walking!

Read more: http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/09/microfilm-at-your-fingertips.html#ixzz3ncrMBFg5