2014 Brookings Family History Fair May 3

Brookings Family History Workshop 

FREE!!!!!!!

A Taste of the Largest Family History Conference in the North America

—Rootstech 2014—

If you would like a taste (beginner, advanced or hobbyist) of the largest-attended Family History Conference in the North America (over 10,000 attendees) without having to pay a $190 admittance fee or travel hundreds of miles to view/hear a wide variety of current topics in Family History, along with live speakers, please plan to attend:

Saturday May 3, 8:00– 3:30 pm

Brookings Ward The Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-Day Saints, 200 22^nd Ave, (south of Hospital)

Northeast door

Sponsored by Brookings SD Family History Center and Brookings Area Genealogical Society

Click Here to Register Online

To Print a Registration Form, Click Here

For Information or  Registration Forms emailed to you, contact:

Pat Walker 605 534 3103 or Liz Gorham 605 692 4551

Email: brookingsworkshop@gmail.com

Registration and Check In    8:00 am - 8:30 am

           Welcome     8:30 am

 Note: Some Syllabuses Already Online Now! 

 *Live Speakers—Remainder are RootsTech 2014 pre-recorded classes

Session 1 – 8:50 – 9:50 am

• *Navigating FamilyTree by Jean Steele* Learning to add and edit people; search and attach sources. This will be a hands-on workshop.  You are not required to bring a device, but if you do bring your own device, (to follow along with the instructor) you should have already registered at FamilySearch at www.familysearch.org by clicking on upper right corner "Join for Free". Laptops rather than mobile devices seem to work best for the search options. There are some minor limitations on mobile devices for entering and searching items on Family Tree. Bring what you have and we will work with it

• Information Overload: Managing Online Searches and Their Results by Josh Taylor When using a search engine pressing Search often yields an large amount of search results. Discover ways to manage online searches and read between the lines" of your results. This presentation includes search engines and popular family history websites

•  How to Use YouTube for Family History by Lisa Cooke– If you have a free Google account, you can have a free YouTube channel for your family history. Learn about:  Setting up Your channel, uploading your first video, customizing your channel layout, organizing channel playlists.

Session 2 – 10:00 – 11:00 am

• *Writing a Moment From a Life by Mary Haug* Focusing on writing narratives about your family history to enhance genealogy work that focuses more on factual data.  The instructor will talk about how she began writing her own memoir by focusing on one small moment, event, or character at a time. If time permits, the class members will write a response to a writing prompt. She will also provide a bibliography of books on memoir writing

• Piecing Together History: Crowd-sourcing Events by Cheri Daniels As a technology driven society we have focused most Crowdsourcing initiatives on social media venues and electronic collecting methods. However, a balance of tech and nontech approaches is necessary to reach a generation in transition.

• Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink    Your research success depends on knowing the best way to search each different collection. Boolean, truncation, keyword, fielded data, proximity, phrase, wild cards and wild words are not foreign terms, but rather your keys to genealogical success!

Session 3 – 11:10 am – 12:10 am

• *Best Free Genealogy Websites by Jodi Sides*. Looking at best websites for climbing your tree without emptying your wallet.

• Finding Your British Roots by Elaine Collins Old World, New Records: findmypast.com as the Key Resource for Tracing British Ancestry - 35' BONUS - 5 Ways to Do Genealogy in Your Sleep or Visit FHC last 1/2 hour.

• Getting the Most Out of Ancestry by Christa Cowan (of Ancestry.com) – Cover 5 major areas of Ancestry website and favorite tools to advance your research.

12:15 pm Lunch

 Join us for a $7.50 prepaid (by April 26)  
Payable to: Brookings Ward
Sandwich, Salad, Desert Lunch or 

bring a lunch or visit nearby eateries

Session 4 – 1:20 – 2:20 pm

• *Who Will Write the Next Chapter in Your Family History? by Larry Cool*.

           This class is geared toward your next generation.  
 It is an interactive class so bring your laptop or your Ipad. 

• The class revolves around 6^th through 12^th grade students.  At some point in this time frame of a student’s education, their history, social studies, or English teacher will probably have them write a paper on their family.  They may also be part of an organization such as the Boy Scouts or the Girl Scouts where they may be able to earn a merit badge or some other rank or credit for doing research on their family’s history.
  
  
  You do not have to be this age to take part, but if as an adult you have a youth who is your son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, niece, or nephew, bring them along.  If you are able to bring your grandfather or grandmother, so much the better.

• How to Scan an Elephant by Denise Levenick Learn how and when to achieve best results using a digital camera, mobile scanner, or portable device to digitize your awkward family keepsakes and oversize research materials

• Intro to DNA for Genealogists by James Rader  Family historians are presented with many tools in Genetics and DNA. This session is the first and will introduce the concepts and methods used in applying DNA results to Genealogy pursuits 

 

Session 5 – 2:30 to 3:30 pm

• *FamilySearch Search, Wiki and Blog by Perry Hanavan* FamilySearch (FS) provides free access to billions of records as well as  a powerful search engine for ancestors.  FS Wiki is about finding records that may have been generated about your ancestors and the places where the records might be found. The FS Blog keeps researchers current with family history information.  Search, Wiki and Blog will be introduced and examples provided.

•  Finding Family/Ancestors Outside the US with New Technologies by Daniel Horowitz Learn how MyHeritage can help break down brick walls in your research outside of the US by harnessing the power of an international family history network.

•   Basic Online Resource for Beginning Genealogists by Lisa Alzo This session will walk beginners through the exciting journey of genealogy as to what information is online, how to effectively search databases, and share information with others.

Visit the Family History Center (FHC) for Individualized Help (Sign up at Registration)

Click Here for more Information on our FHC--contacts, hours, holdings

DISPLAYS

Why LDS do Family History

Personal/Family History Display

Puzilla and other Family Tree Add Ons You Didn’t Know About

We invite you to pick and choose from a smorgasbord of topics that will satisfy your hunger for new information and ideas, timely topics and chance to mingle with fellow researchers from a wide geographic area.

Subscribe via email or check this page often for further details!

How to Request Copies from FamilySearch

How to Request Copies of Microfilm Images, Book Pages, CDs, Marriage, Death or Birth Certificates, Wills and/or Deeds from FamilySearch

FamilySearch has slightly reworded the policy for patrons who are requesting copies from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here is the summation:
"All requests for information copied from films, book pages, CDs, marriage, death or birth certificates, wills and/or deeds, etc. will be copied in digital format and emailed to patrons in a zipped PDF or JPG file format. There is no charge for this service if we are able to email to information to patrons."
You can read more in an article by Merrill White in the FamilySearch Blog at http://goo.gl/moULsS.

Posted by Dick Eastman on March 06, 2014 in Genealogy Basics

Policy Change for Patrons Requesting Photocopies From the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah

February 4, 2013 By Merrill White

Please note the following change in the policy for patrons who are requesting copies from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
All requests for information copied from films, book pages, CDs, marriage, death or birth certificates, wills and/or deeds, etc. will be copied in digital format and emailed to patrons in a zipped PDF or JPG file format.

 There is no charge for this service if we are able to email to information to patrons.

 NOTE: Requests are limited to 5 image shots per month.

If a patron does not have an email address, we can mail the information to the patron using the US Postal Service.  However, as much as possible, we will rely on emailing all requests for information through the internet. If patrons do not own a computer or do not have an email address, they can request to have the information emailed to their local Family History Center, where they can print the information at the center.
Patrons should request copies by submitting their request here: Photoduplication Request Form.  All requests MUST include the following information:

• Film or Fiche number
• Item number
• Name of Individual(s) referred to in the record
• Title of the record
• Name of parents, spouse, grantor, grantee, etc.
• Event type (Birth, Death or Marriage)
• Complete event date and place
• Event place (county, parish, township, etc.)
• Volume or page number
• Registration or Certificate Number
• Any other information that will help us locate your record.

 

Backed Up Your Family Tree Lately?

YESTERDAY (to be sung to the tune of the Beatles' song - Yesterday)

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay
Now my database has gone away
Oh I believe in yesterday
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be
And there's a deadline
hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say
Now my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
Thought all my data was here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

--Courtesy of

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Feb 25, 2014

MyHeritage Adds Millions of Nordic Records

MyHeritage Adds Millions of Nordic Records

(courtesty of Eastman's Genealogy Newsletter Online)

If you have Scandinavian ancestry, you will want to check this out. MyHeritage, the exclusive sponsor of this newsletter, today added more than 32 million records from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, dating back to the early 1600s.

Additionally, MyHeritage is investing millions of dollars to digitize more Nordic historical content and has signed new agreements that will result in a wealth of Nordic historical records to be added during the next few years.

Here is the official announcement from MyHeritage:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden & OSLO, Norway & COPENHAGEN, Denmark & HELSINKI, Finland & TEL AVIV, Israel -- MyHeritage, the popular family history network announced today a market expansion initiative focused on the Nordic countries. Millions of families can now search digitized Nordic records dating back to the 17th century to discover more about their ancestors and the lives they led.

In addition to the significant content added today, MyHeritage is investing millions of dollars to digitize more Nordic historical content and has signed new agreements that will result in a wealth of Nordic historical records to be added during the next few years.

MyHeritage is already the family history market leader in the Nordic region and is the only major company providing services in Norwegian, Danish and Finnish. With more than 470,000 registered users in Sweden, 350,000 in Norway, 300,000 in Denmark and 200,000 in Finland, MyHeritage has amassed the largest Nordic user base and family tree database in the market. MyHeritage users can now enjoy a more comprehensive family history experience that combines family trees and historical records, to paint a more detailed and colorful picture of their ancestry.

MyHeritage has also launched today dedicated social media channels for Norway, Denmark and Finland including local blogs and Facebook and Twitter accounts, to complement its existing popular Swedish social media presence. Followers will be notified about additional record collections as they are added and enjoy tips and tricks for family history research and more information about MyHeritage’s services.

The Nordic historical record collections added today include birth, death, marriage, baptism and other records, covering more than 90 million names. This comes in addition to more than 70 million profiles in 730,000 family trees created by MyHeritage users from the Nordic region, and many more contributed by users with Nordic ancestry. The records and the public profiles are available for searching via SuperSearch, MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records. MyHeritage users also enjoy powerful matching technologies that research their family trees automatically and notify them whenever records relevant to their family are found. This makes discoveries easier and quicker than ever before.

For Sweden, MyHeritage has added 11 million records with 31 million names. These collections include baptism documents dating back to 1611, marriage documents dating back to 1630 and burial documents dating back to 1649. Visitors can find more information about the collections from Sweden and search them at www.myheritage.se/svenska-samlingar.

For Norway, MyHeritage has added 10 million records with 30 million names. These collections include baptism documents dating back to 1634, marriage documents dating back to 1660, burial documents dating back to 1666 and the Norwegian national census from 1875. Visitors can find more information about the collections from Norway and search them at www.myheritage.no/norske-samlinger.

For Denmark, MyHeritage has added 5.5 million records with 14 million names. These collections include baptism documents dating back to 1618, marriage documents dating back to 1635 and burial documents dating back to 1640. Visitors can find more information about the collections from Denmark and search them at www.myheritage.dk/danske-samlinger.

For Finland, MyHeritage has added 5.5 million records with 16 million names. These collections include baptism documents dating back to 1657, marriage documents dating back to 1682 and burial documents dating back to 1725. Visitors can find more information about the collections from Finland and search them at www.myheritage.com/suomalaiset-kokoelmat.

“We're delighted to add this vast collection of historical records to our fast growing database and are excited about the new family connections that our users will make and the family stories they will reveal", said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “This is a treasure trove not only for people in the Nordic countries but for everyone whose family originated from this region. We look forward to enhancing our leadership in the Nordic region and in many additional countries over the next few years – watch this space!”

With a diverse user base, spanning every country and continent, MyHeritage is a gateway to a massive variety of family histories from different cultures, religions and ethnic backgrounds. MyHeritage offers a private and secure environment for sharing and researching family history, and users can choose which information they wish to share. MyHeritage has ranked #10 in Deloitte's 2013 Fast 500 list of the 500 technology companies with the fastest revenue growth across all of Europe.

About MyHeritage

MyHeritage is a family history network helping millions of families around the world discover and share their legacy online. As technology thought leaders and innovators in the space, MyHeritage is transforming family history into an activity that’s accessible, exciting and easier than ever before. MyHeritage empowers its global community of users with unique social tools, a massive library of historical content and powerful search and data matching technologies. The service is available in 40 languages. For more information visit www.myheritage.com.

David Library of the American Revolution

From Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Dec 3, 2013

David Library of the American Revolution

The David Library of the American Revolution is a great resource for students, historians, and genealogists. It is a non-profit educational institution dedicated to the collection and dissemination of information about the American Revolution as well as related topics of history during that period of American history, and the support of related educational programs and scholarly research. 
 

The David Library is primarily an in-person resource. Anyone who wishes to use the Library's resources will need to visit in person at Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from Trenton, New Jersey. None of the Library's holdings have been digitized, other than the Library's catalog. The David Library is a “non-circulating” library. Patrons must use Library's resources onsite. The collection includes more than 10,000 reels of microfilm, 6,500 books and 2,000 pamphlets. As stated on the David Library's home page:

"Here you will find almost all the basic primary sources on the Revolution, including materials, such as many documents microfilmed at the British Archives, found no where else in this country. And you will find this material in one building, serviced by a small but highly knowledgeable staff that has no other objective than to assist its users in learning about the broad era of the American Revolution."

The David Library's catalog has been digitized and is available at: http://207.67.203.70/D90002/OPAC/Index.aspx.

You can learn more at the David Library home page at http://www.dlar.org/ and especially at the Library's FAQ page at http://www.dlar.org/faqs.htm.

My thanks to newsletter reader Everett Stonebraker for telling me about this great resource.

CROWDSOURCING Genealogy

From Eastman's Genealogy Newsletter Oct 24, 2013

CrowdSourcing Genealogy

Would you be willing to pay $5 to have someone send you a picture of your ancestral village, or great grandma's house? One new crowdsourcing project hopes to makes this possible.

As defined by Dictionary.com:

crowd·source
[kroud-sawrs, -sohrs]
verb (used with object), verb (used without object), crowd·sourced, crowd·sourc·ing.
to utilize (labor, information, etc.) contributed by the general public to (a project), often via the Internet and without compensation.

Actually, crowdsourcing has already been used several times in genealogy. Perhaps one of the biggest crowdsourcing projects of all times was the indexing of the 1940 U.S. census in a joint initiative between the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Archives.com, FamilySearch.org, findmypast.com, and other leading genealogy organizations. Literally hundreds of thousands of indexers around the world helped create a great resource and make it available to other genealogists. (See https://familysearch.org/blog/en/1940-census/ for details.)

More recently, on September 13–15, crowdsourcing volunteers from around the world joined together with FamilySearch.org to index and arbitrate 134,986 Italian records (approximately 400,000 names). Participants were invited to index and arbitrate over 35,000 Italian records in just 48 hours—slightly more than the previous high. (Details may be found at http://goo.gl/nfZDny.)

Ancestry.com has a similar project underway using volunteer indexers and dozens of local genealogy societies have been using volunteers for years to index local records. The recent Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness was actually a crowdsourcing project, although I don't recall the site's owner as ever using that term. That site went offline following the owner's death and a number of newer web sites have since appeared, each claiming to be a "replacement" for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. None of the replacements has been as successful as the original, however.

Now Eric Proffitt is organizing a similar project. His project plans to be a bit more formal than the others, including hiring software developers to create specialized software to allow millions of transactions between people doing family history and amateur genealogists.

Eric reports his family recently spent $1,200 hiring a professional genealogist to visit his wife's ancestral village in Ukraine and send pictures to Eric and his family. As a result, the family was able to see the great, great, grandmother's school, learn about cousins who are still alive, and got a feel for the culture of the area. However, the end result was expensive.

Eric writes, "This got us to thinking: what if we could create a place where normal people like you and me could help each other find their families?? For instance, if I wanted a picture of my Keith Family Castle, but couldn't afford to fly to the Scotland, I could post my request and have someone who already lives there take the picture and send it to me for as little as $5!"

Eric Proffitt has now created Crowd-Sourcing Genealogy, an online place where people can connect with other, normal people to access things such as gravestones, church records, marriage licenses etc. without having to travel across the world, or without having to pay $1,000's of dollars will take Family history to a whole new level.

You can read more about this project at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crowd-sourcing-genealogy or watch the video below or at http://youtu.be/D-y4-J6veH8. 

Use Google Books to Get Free Copies of FHL Books

New post on FamilySearch Blog

Use Google Books to Get Free Copies of Pages of   Family History Library Books by Nathan W. Murphy Earlier this year, FamilySearch announced a free lookup service for genealogy books and microfilm available at the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The response was overwhelming, 1000s of people contacted us to take advantage of this free service.  Another way to utilize this service is to start with limited preview Google Books and get us to scan the entire page and email it to you for free. Let's walk through the process. First, start on Google Books: http://books.google.com/     Search for the name of an ancestor:    Google has scanned millions of books that are both (1) out of copyright and (2) still under copyright. If you happen to find a book that is out of copyright, i.e. published before 1923, you'll usually be able to read the entire book for free online and you do not need to use FamilySearch's free lookup service.  For books still under copyright, i.e. published since 1923, Google Books often provides a "snippet view" (see below). You cannot see the entire book online, only a snippet.  What do you do if you want to see the entire page, or several pages from the book?   Our answer -- use FamilySearch's free lookup service. If you find a reference to your ancestor in pages that cannot be viewed, make a note of the: 1.      Name of the Individual (as it appears in the book) 2.      Book Title 3.      Page Number(s) Second, check the Family History Library Catalog to see if that book is available in our collection: https://familysearch.org/catalog-search Make a note of the Call Number. Third, if the book is available in our collection, complete our online Photoduplication Request form: Within a short period of time, you'll receive an email that includes a scanned copy of that page.  Make up to five requests per person per month.  Sit back in your recliner, put your feet up, and let us do the work for you. Nathan W. Murphy | November 4, 2013 at 5:45 am | URL: http://wp.me/p3q0yN-41S Comment    See all comments

Steve Morses's One Step Webpage--Obamacare Data (No Joke) and SSDI

These articles are both taken from Eastman's Genealogy Newsletter at Click here for Obamacare Database and Easy Way to Search the SSDI

Viewing ObamaCare Plans in One Step

Steve Morse is well-known for his "One-Step Webpages," a genealogy web site at http://www.stevemorse.org that indexes large databases, including immigration records, census records, vital records, calendars, maps, foreign alphabets, and numerous other applications. Steve's web site helps simplify genealogy searches, reducing confusion and making information easier to find.

Now Steve has added another "One Step" index, simplifying an even more difficult, even mystifying, web site. It is called the Obamacare Plans in One Step.

No, this is not a joke. Take a look for yourself at http://stevemorse.org/obamacare/obamacare.html. I bet this will become a very popular online tool!

Posted by Dick Eastman on October 23, 2013 in Online Sites | Permalink

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Easy (and More Accurate) Method of Searching the SSDI

The Social Security Death Index is a great research tool for finding relatives who died sometime after the early 1960s.

The SSDI is an index to the Death Master File (DMF) maintained by the Social Security Administration (SSA), which contains roughly 100 million records and is updated weekly. The file is created from internal SSA records of deceased persons possessing social security numbers and whose deaths were reported to the SSA.

The information within the SSDI is in the public domain and thereby available to everyone. However, in recent years a number of well-meaning but misguided public officials have attempted to close or at least restrict public access to the SSDI in the name of "preventing identity theft." Apparently, these officials do not realize that public access to the SSDI is one of the best tools for PREVENTING identity theft! (See my earlier article about the theft protection value of the SSDI at http://goo.gl/zthmCx.)

........

Steve Morse is well known for the software tools he creates to simplify the searching of many online genealogy databases. Sometimes I think that Steve Morse is God's gift to genealogists. He takes good databases and turns them into great ones. Steve has created excellent indexing tools to the Ellis Island and Castle Garden sites as well as many other databases of interest to genealogists. His search tools generally will perform faster searches with more accurate results than the search capabilities invented by the original database designers.

Steve doesn't add any new data. He simply improves the search mechanisms and makes the search software available on his own site, called the "One-Step Portal." If you'd like to try Stephen Morse's One-Step Search Portal, go to http://www.stevemorse.org. I suspect you will be impressed by all the searches available there.

Steve Morse saw the weaknesses in the various offerings of the SSDI, so he created his own index at http://www.stevemorse.org/ssdi/ssdi.html. As you can see from the screenshot below, Steve offers more search options than any of the other online sites that offer the SSDI.

Click on the above thumbnail image to view a larger image of Steve's search parameters.

Steve's search engine will search the SSDI records found on the following websites:

worldvitalrecords.com
ancestry.com
familysearch.org
familytreelegends.com
genealogybank.com
NEHGS' americanancesters.org

However, Steve Morse's One-Stop web site only searches those sites one at a time. If you want to search ALL of those sites, you need to perform six separate searches, one for each online service.

Keep in mind that some of these services may restrict the information to paid members of the site. For instance, World Vital Records will only display results to paid subscribers. Ancestry.com will provide limited information to non-subscribers; but, to view the entire record, you need to sign on to Ancestry.com with a user name and password. Other online sites may or may not restrict access in some manner.

Steve Morse's One-Step Genealogy web site is always available free of charge, but the records it points to may be limited by the policies of the external site that controls those records.

.............

Use of Stephen Morse's One-Step Search Portal simplifies the searches as well as adds powerful search options that may not be available on all web sites' copies of the SSDI data. If you want to find the death information of someone who died in the U.S. in the early 1960s or later, go to http://www.stevemorse.org/ssdi/ssdi.html. 

ONLINE NATIONAL Archives of NORWAY

 From Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter:

The Online National Archives of Norway

The National Archives of Norway has been digitizing thousands of documents for some time and continues to add more daily. Even better, all the digitized documents are available online free of charge.


A wide variety of documents are already available, including census records, parish records, probate records, court records, and emigrant lists. These documents provide information about people's lives, in some cases going back to the 9th century.

Norway had mass emigration 100 to 120 years ago when roughly one-third of the population left the country. Many went to the United States with smaller numbers of emigrants to Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. The folks at the National Archives of Norway are aware that many English speaking descendants of Norwegian emigrants would like to research their heritage. As a result, the web site is available in both Norwegian and in English although the documents obviously will always be written in Norwegian. For those who never learned the language of their ancestors, a Norwegian-English dictionary can be a big help.

The Digital Archives of the National Archives of Norway can be found at http://arkivverket.no/eng. The starting page for parish records is at http://www.arkivverket.no/eng/content/view/full/629 and an example of a scanned register book may be found at: http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read?idx_kildeid=571&uid=ny&idx_side=-471. (Click on Control-Plus in a Windows computer or Command-Plus in a Macintosh to zoom in on an image.)

You also might want to check out the National Archives of Norway blog at http://dokumenteneforteller.tumblr.com/ that presents documents and photos related to a different theme every month. However, that blog is written in Norwegian.

3D Photography of Tombstones

---Excerpted from Society of Historical Archaeology Blog

Understanding Cemeteries through Technical Applications: An example from Fort Drum, NY

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Duane Quates

A few times each year, the SHA Technology Committee hosts Tech Week, an entire week devoted to certain technologies used in historical archaeology. This week, archaeologist Duane Quates was asked to gather blog posts about the use of technology in mortuary analysis.

Fort Drum, New York has a surprisingly rich history and the 13 historic cemeteries of Fort Drum are a profound reminder of the communities that existed prior to the Army’s acquisition of the now 107,000 acre military reservation in 1941. Current technologies such as LiDAR, GIS, database management software, and geophysical technologies, such as ground penetrating radar, magnetometry, and electrical soil resistivity are providing the base archaeologists with innovative tools to understand and mange these resources responsibly.

Figure 1: The grave of William Anderson and his wife Elizabeth

One of the many aspects of the cemeteries that I found interesting is that there are only two known African American gravestones out of 1802 known burials. One grave is that of William Anderson and his wife Elizabeth located in the Gates Cemetery near Historic Sterlingville. The second is that of Rachel, a former slave of James Leray, in the Sheepfold Cemetery. The graves in both of these cemeteries are very similar in that they are alone in the back of the cemetery, segregated from the rest of the burials.
Unfortunately the archaeological record of the base is very similar in its representation of the African American community. To date, the Cultural Resources Program at Fort Drum has identified 962 sites on the 107,000 acre military reservation. Over 65% of the recorded sites are historic. However, only two known sites are considered to have an African American component; the LeRay Mansion Slave Quarters and the Whitney Farmstead. The first is associated with James LeRay de Chaumont, a French capitalist and land speculator, whose family fortune was acquired largely from the transatlantic slave trade. The second is associated with a 19th century farmstead that, unfortunately, is poorly understood. This assemblage includes trade beads from Gambia, West Africa, as well as Lamoka points from the late Archaic Period.
The Fort Drum Cultural Resources Program manages and maintains the cemeteries of the post. Rachel’s marker is one that has given us the most concern. It is made of a poor quality marble that has frost fractured several times. Each time the Fort Drum Cultural Resources Program has repaired it with epoxy but unfortunately time and weather has taken its toll on the stone. The epitaph is no longer fully legible.

Figure 2: The grave of Rachel

In April 2010 at the Society for American Archaeology meeting in Sacramento, CA, while perusing the book room, I met Bill Mongon of Accurex, Inc. in the technology section of the book room. He was demonstrating a multi-lens camera that was capable of building a 3D model of almost any object. What I found fascinating was the system’s capability of finding minute details on objects that were not detectable by the naked eye. I asked if there were any field applications for the device. Bill suggested that he travel to Fort Drum and provide a demonstration by scanning Rachel’s grave stone. The demonstration at Rachel’s grave site went beautifully. The system performed perfectly in spite of a continual rain that drenched us. Fortunately, scanning Rachel’s grave stone took only 2 hours.

Figure 3: 3D scan of Rachel’s grave stone

In figure 3 the epitaph is very clear, which reads: “Rachel A good & faithful nurse. Died Jan. 10 1834.” The lower epitaph reads “This monument was placed in her memory by her loving children Vincent & Alexander LeRay de Chaumont & Therese de Gouvello.” Ironically, one year after this scan was done, while giving a tour of the cemetery I found the grave stone broken into several pieces by a large oak tree that had come down in a wind storm. Fortunately, we have the 3D scan of the stone allowing us to replicate it.
In 2010, the Cultural Resources Program at Fort Drum embarked on a new project to answer several pressing concerns about the cemeteries. First, we suspected that there were unmarked graves surrounding the two known African American grave markers. Military training had the potential to encroach upon the boundaries of the Sheepfold Cemetery where Rachel lies, with the new development and expansion of nearby training course. It was necessary to know, with absolute certainty, whether the boundary of the cemetery was accurate or if there were burials outside of the fence. Second, we also wanted to make a concerted effort to find whether there were other African American graves in the other cemeteries on the base.
To answer these questions, an inventory of our cemeteries was necessary and then the attributes could be compared. Once that was completed and the African American graves identified, geophysical surveys would be conducted in the vivinity. Unfortunately, the staff did not have the expertise or training needed to perform the geophysical surveys. Fortunately, I was able to acquire funding to hire an intern, Mike Sprowles, through the Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education (ORISE) to complete the project.
Mike started the project by creating a database and developing the attributes that he intended to record. The database became something more than what was originally intended. His database can compare attributes of all 1802 burials and search for similarities. It also has the capability of tracking the conditions of each stone and is a perfect tool to manage the cemeteries. Finally, it is searchable by name and can be used by any member of the public for genealogical research. He finished the inventory in just 10 months and we publicly launched the database as a genealogy tool in October of 2012. He has surveyed both the Gates cemetery and the Sheepfold cemetery and found several anomalies consistent with unmarked burials near Rachel’s grave stone.
But I digress. I will let Mike explain this project in his own words in his blog post. Also, the Tech Week Blog will feature Dr. Michael Heilen of Statistical Research Inc., discussing the Alameda-Stone Cemetery in Tucson, AZ, as well as Katy Meyers, PhD. Candidate at Michigan State University, with her post on the spatial analysis of the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Livingston County, New York. These posts have several things in common. All discuss the use of GIS and databases in their analyses. However, each is unique in how they demonstrate the advantages of these technologies in cemetery studies. The thing that excites me about archaeology’s use of technology is the surprising results one gets when applying various techniques to a particular problem. Technology has a way of finding answers to questions that you never intended to ask.

Many New Announcements from FamilySearch

Many New Announcements from FamilySearch

FamilySearch continues to make many changes and additions to its services for genealogists.Today was the first day of the Federation if Genealogical Societies' annual conference and FamilySearch took advantage of the event to make several significant announcements. I am not sure that I heard all of them but here are the ones that I heard, offered in no particular order:

The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has a new director: Diane Loosle. The official announcement was published in this newsletter earlier today at http://goo.gl/re29YG. In a short speech, Diane described several changes she is making at the Library. She seems especially interested in applying crowd sourcing to collaborative services in the Library, starting on Nordic Area. This is a dedicated space (replacing the previous Nordic counter) encouraging patrons to work together on common research goals. The Library staff will also be available, as always, but their assistance will be supplemented by others who are researching in the same areas.

Diane also will continue efforts started earlier to bring the library to remote patrons via online resources.

Paul Nauta, Manager of Public Affairs for FamilySearch, gave a brief presentation on  "Where FamilySearch is and Where it is Going." Amongst the numbers he gave that I was able to scribble down:

• Almost 3 billion names are now online at FamilySearch.org with approximately 1.7 million more being added every day.

• FamilySearch now has 237 camera teams in the field in locations all around the globe. The plan is to expand that number to 500 within a very few months.

• FamilySearch is about to start new Family History Discover Centers, first in high traffic locations in metropolitan  area. Assuming these first efforts are successful, similar Family History Discover Centers will be added in 3 to 5 other cities worldwide in the next 12 months. Some of these centers will have Oral History Recording Studios, (one is already installed at the Riverton, Utah, Family History Center). These audio and video studios will encourage any interested person  to describe their life experiences to be recorded for posterity. Some people will prefer to sit alone in front of a camer, giving a monologue, while others my wish to be interviewed by a family member or an interested friend. The plan is to capture their life stories on audio and video, storing the results on your own flash drive that you take with you. Initially, no copy is kept by FamilySearch but the plan is to add that later as an option; you can agree to give a copy to FamilySearch or not. Total cost for use of the Oral History Recording Studio is $8 for one hour or perhaps a bit longer. That fee pays for the pre-formatted flash drive that will be supplied by FamilySearch. Plan on an hour for the video plus perhaps an additional 15 minutes or so for the technicians to copy the video to the flash drive.

• 950 million names are now online in the new Online Family Tree with about 42,000 more names being added every day. The new Online Family Tree was heavily promoted within the LDS community but given little publicity elsewhere. However, FamilySearch managers have been pleasantly surprised to find that non-LDS contributors have added about 27% of the data.

• 700,000+ patron-submitted family photographs are now online with an additional adding 5,000 or so photographs being added daily.

• A new service was announced: you will soon be able to take your old family photographs to a local Family History Center near you and use the high-speed scanner there to digitize stacks of photos. The software will upload the photographs to your personal area on FamilySearch.org. You can later sort and label the photographs as well as add stories or biographies to the photos as appropriate, either at home or back at the Family History Center. The software is available today. The new scanners are being sent to local centers and personnel will be trained soon. NOTE: You don't need to visit a Family History Center to upload photos. You can do so from home, using your own scanner. The new, high-speed equipment at local Family History Center is simply a convenience for those who do not own scanners or for anyone who has lots of pictures to upload. Apparently, you can insert a stack of photographs into a scanner, press a button, and the images will be scanned at a high resolution very quickly.

• Many of the sessions at RootsTech 2014 will be available via live streaming in 60 satellite locations around the world, in 10 languages. It is expected that 120,000 remote, but live, attendees will be watching.

• FamilySearch Indexing: Since 2006, more than 1 billion names have been indexed by 140,000+ volunteers but still more volunteers are needed, especially for overseas records.

• How to explain indexing: a new video is now online on FamilySearch.org. The video was played to an large audience last night before the FGS conference opened. It is a short cartoon with no words but with graphics and text available in 10 languages. After watching the video, anyone should be able to understand the benefit of indexing.

--excerpted from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter