29 August 2008 by Libbi.

I’m wondering. Is picking a woman as your vice presidential running mate the way a candidate Jumps the Shark? I hope not. I hope picking a female running mate doesn’t guarantee it’s all downhill from here.

While many minor parties, back to 1800s, have nominated women for both President and Vice President, between the two major parties, we have had Geraldine Ferraro and, now, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.  Palin  is John McCain’s running mate.

Ferraro,  a savvy politician, was Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984. The choice of Ferraro was a gamble, as no female had been on a major party’s top ticket before, but  Mondale was 16 points behind Ronald Reagan, so he was reaching for a bump. After her selection, polling was “dead even.” However, in November, Mondale/Ferraro lost in an electoral landslide.

We have the opposite situation here: A very close race, and the choice of a woman for Vice President is supposed to give McCain  a bump to clinch the lead and keep it.  Palin is little known on the national stage. Even though she’s young, and has been governor for only two years, she’s probably more competent than he imagines, probably smarter, deeper and stronger than he thinks,  but I believe all he sees is the gender issue: reach out to the disappointed supporters of Hilary Clinton.   It’s cynical of me, but I think he’s chosen her strictly for that reason. If he wanted a woman of proven competence, he might have at least looked at Elizabeth Dole.

We’ll see in November how it pans out.

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29 August 2008 by Libbi.

• A story in the L. A. Times says the the National Institutes of Health has blocked DNA databases from the public because of privacy concerns.
• In the Phillipines, officials of the International Police (Interpol) on Friday are urging relatives of dead victims of the sunken MV “Princess of the Stars” to submit DNA samples to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) if they have not yet done so.
• In Santa Fe, NM, an amateur historian and a newspaper are seeking DNA evidence to determine whether Billy the Kid was shot in 1881, or if the sheriff shot someone else and then claimed it was the famous outlaw.
• DNA science is seen as one way to get students interested in genealogy and history according to this Public School Insights article.

P. S. My son Matt says he reads my blog when it’s about DNA. So, Hi,  Matt!

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28 August 2008 by Libbi.

If you are within driving distance of the Bluegrass, you could spend this holiday weekend at the Heartland Festival in Elizabethtown, KY.

The Kentucky Heartland Festival is August 29-30,  celebrating its 26th anniversary in 2008. (Coincidentally, my daughter is 26. We traveled up from Huntsville in 1982, bringing her to see all her Kentucky kin and the first festival. I still remember her face as she watched her first fireworks display.)

The festival is held at Freeman Lake Park in Elizabethtown each year during the last full weekend in August. Freeman Lake Park, located on 31W North, provides an outdoor setting ideal for festival events.  Balloon races, craft demonstrations and more are part of the festival. The park also has a log cabin like the one owned by Abraham Lincoln’s father  Thomas and his stepmother Sarah Bush Johnston.  My kids used to love touring that log cabin during the festival.

Then on September 1, drive up the Dixie Highway for the Civil War Living History Program  at the CIVIL WAR FORT DUFFIELD in historic West Point, Kentucky (still in Hardin County, but on the Ohio River) on the Dixie Hwy. (U.S. 31W) at Salt River Drive. It will run from  Noon until 6 PM, with Union and Confederate Reenactors, Encampments, tours and presentations at Kentucky’s largest and best preserved earthen fortification.

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27 August 2008 by Libbi.

I hope you are watching and enjoying this week’s series on the Today show, as the cast look for their roots. If you missed any, the videos are on the Today Show site.

Meredith, Matt and Ann have told their stories so far. It’s a lot of fun, so be sure to catch it!

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Just FYI: I live in the Panhandle of Florida. If the prediction of Gustav moves much more east, then next week, I’m headed to higher ground. Whether I blog next week depends on where we wind up.

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26 August 2008 by Libbi.

Everyone hits a brick wall, where the birth and death records just aren’t easy to find. In that case, try some different records, for instance, land records. Deeds often contain information on who sold what to whom; who inherited what from whom; or how some land was divided among them in a family.  Taxes on land also sometimes have interesting information.

Most state archives have land records, and many have an online way to search the index and then order a copy of the record you want for a small fee. Also, the Bureau of Land Management has launched an enhanced online image library that  combines thousands of digital photographs of landscapes and historical images of the American West.

The BLM Image Library, available through the BLM Website at http://photos.blm.gov, contains more than 60,000 images of public lands, mostly in 12 Western states, including Alaska. A special collection maintained by the BLM’s National Operations Center includes 3,600 historical photos dating back to the early surveys of the West. 

Users are able to search state and national collections by keyword or descriptions, then download images in a variety of sizes. A “shopping cart” feature allows users to collect a number of images and then download all in a compressed folder.

Among the images are thousands of illustrations of areas managed by the BLM, including National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, and popular recreation areas. The collection also includes spectacular images of the agency’s  vast landscape resources, as well as images of multiple uses and resources managed by the BLM, including livestock grazing, mineral development, energy production, wild horses and burros, wildfire, and cultural sites.

So, the next time you are stuck in your research, use land records to break through!

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25 August 2008 by Libbi.

Just thought I’d mention that my book is available on Kindle as well as hard copy.

Right now, you can get the Amazon Rewards Visa Card and Get $100 Off Kindle when you get the new Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card. Limited time only. Here’s how this works: 1) Apply online. Get a response in as little as 30 seconds. If you’re approved, we will instantly add the card to your Amazon.com account and you’ll get $30 back on your credit card statement after your purchase. 2) Add a Kindle to your cart. 3) Place your order using the Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card and enter this promo code: VISACARD to get the additional $70 savings at checkout. Additional restrictions apply.

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25 August 2008 by Libbi.

Genealogy DNA Research Program coming to Huntsville

Many of you know Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak as the lead researcher for the PBS Ancestors series where she delved into over 5,000 genealogical stories and developed much of the content for the companion website. She has subsequently consulted for other television programs, including They Came to America and African American Lives for PBS, and BBC’s Timewatch (regarding the identification of sailors’ remains recovered from the USS Monitor). She currently serves as Chief Family Historian and North American spokesperson for Ancestry.com and is also co-founder of Roots Television just to name a few of her accomplishments.
She is also host of the series Unclaimed Persons on RootsTevelevision. Unclaimed Persons features cases–one involving a man who was found in his jeep in the desert and had been lost to his family for more than 50 years — from Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania and San Bernardino County, California. Unclaimed Persons can be viewed here and more information is available here.

The Huntsville-Madison County Public Library will be hosting an all-day program scheduled for Saturday, October 18^th from 9 AM to 4 PM with Ms. Smolenyak as the featured speaker. This is her first ever trip to the state of Alabama. The event, ‘Genealogy for the 21^st Century: DNA Research & Roots Television’, will be held in the ballroom of Embassy Suites Hotel at 800 Monroe Street. The cost is $45 per person for those who pre-register by August 31^st. The charge will increase to $50 per person for the month of September. Deadline for ALL registrations is September 30^th. Seating for the event  IS LIMITED to the first 130 people to sign up and lunch is NOT INCLUDED in the ticket price. Also, copies of Megan’s books will be on sale. To sign up for what promises to be a highly informative event, reservations are being taken in person through the Administration Office on third floor of the Main Library from 9 AM to 5 PM or by mailing a check to the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library, DNA Research Seminar, 915 Monroe Street, Huntsville, AL 35801. Reservation fees MUST be paid in advance.  This is one program you don’t want to miss!

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22 August 2008 by Libbi.

DearMYRTLE’s Family History Hour for  the week is up. I talk about genealogy education in this show. Give it a listen!

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22 August 2008 by Libbi.

Greg Notess reports in Online that Yahoo! no longer has full support for Boolean searches.

As I point out in my book, Genealogy Online 8th Edition, you can do a lot of good research using search engines and Boolean operators (AND, NOT, OR, and parentheses.) One of the first search engines, Yahoo!, has stopped supporting the operators NOT and AND, although the plus or minus sign in front of a term still work.

The NOT is very important to genealogists searching for surnames that are also common words: BROWN, FOX, BANKS, & WEEKS are just some examples.  To find genealogy pages for these surnames in Yahoo, be sure now to put a minus-sign directly in front of a term that you want excluded from search result (meaning that Yahoo! will exclude pages that has that term in their text) and a plus sign in front of terms you must have. So to get hits for pages with genealogy and Banks surname, instead of

BANKS AND GENEALOGY NOT FINANCE NOT RIVER

you would formulate it as

+BANKS +GENEALOGY -FINANCE -RIVER

The OR operator still works, and the AND is assumed if you use no operators, but nesting with parentheses doesn’t as in

+(BANKS AND GENEALOGY) - (FINANCE OR RIVER)

Advanced Google still accepts the most popular Boolean terms, and Exalead even supports the NEAR operator, which really helps with common surnames. Still, as Notess says: “Live Search is now the only major search engine with full Boolean support.”

Wow. Microsoft leading in power-user technology and Yahoo! dumbing down. Who’d a thunk it?

This is short-sighted on Yahoo!’s part. While many users may not appreciate the power of the Boolean terms, users such as librarians, journalists and genealogy researchers love them. Rethink this, Yahoo! We need our Boolean boogie!

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21 August 2008 by Libbi.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) has launched a public consultation on the early transfer of some historic armed forces service personnel records to The National Archives.The public can now give their views on the process of transferring to The National Archives, records of soldiers, sailors and airmen who served between the wars, in addition to files of the Home Guard during the Second World War.

As these records are personnel files they need to be handled correctly, in accordance with data protection legislation. If you want to give your suggestions and comments, or simply express your support for the proposed transfer process, you can find out more about the transfer and add your thoughts at:

http://www.forums.mod.uk/feedback/PublicConsultation.htm

Alternatively, you can write to the following address:

MOD Service Records Public Consultation
Floor 6 Zone G
Ministry of Defence
Main Building
Whitehall
London SW1A 2HB

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