The Guys remember John Fuller who passed away recently. John maintained a masterful site of all of the genealogy mailing lists in the world.

This week's news includes: Family Tree Magazine has published its 101 Best Websites for 2009, and The Genealogy Guys Podcast has been named to that prestigious list; Ancestry.com will soon be launching Member Connect at its website to facilitate communication and collaboration between members and subscribers; and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) will be turning over alien registration files to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facilities near San Francisco and Kansas City (the searchable index announced in the podcast is no longer there).

One of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission's "Lincoln Legacy Town Hall" meetings will be held on Monday, June 29th, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at the Harold Washington Library Center, in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium. Author and scholar Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., will join Chicago writer and interviewer Rick Kogan to have an interactive discussion of how the stories we tell shape history and how history shapes our stories. U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., will also be in attendance.

The Guys discuss the upcoming Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree in Burbank, June 26-28, 2009. Join them at this great event. More details are available at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/2009jam-home.htm. Note: Dr. Zuberi's dinner speech will be on Friday.

This week's listener email includes: Roger responded to Kristen's email (Episode 174) concerning genealogical society dues vs. fees for members-only areas of a website; Gus reconfirms that deceased persons do appear in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) while the surviving spouse collects benefits; Sean responded to the point made about recording multiple spellings of surnames by telling us that The Master Genealogist program supports the entry of multiple names in its database; Georgia Keilman asked us to tell people about her Greek genealogy website at http://www.HellenicGenealogyGeek.com; Tim tells us about another software package that can be used to generate your genealogy website, called The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding" at http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php. The software also incorporates Google Maps into the site and Tim provides a link to his own site at http://www.ryeland.com and a link to his great-grandfather's page at http://ryeland.com/getperson.php?personID=I4340&tree=Ryeland. Damien enjoys the "craic" between The Guys, and asks about the availability of software that tags photos in the way that Facebook does. (Listeners are invited to share information with us.) Mac has had difficulty locating an obituary in New York City for a classmate and asks for suggestions.

Drew shares information about the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). Bobbi King assists persons seeking a roommate for the upcoming FGS Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 2-5, 2009. Email her at rking24600@aol.com to request assistance with roommate matching. The opening session on Wednesday morning at the FGS Conference is "Delegate 101," a panel discussion and Q&A session concerning how societies and their FGS Delegates can be more effective in their liaison work.

Drew discussed two social networking issues:

1. Facebook.com now allows you to select your own unique userid. You can then give friends and family members a direct link to your facebook page in the form of a Web address.
2. Google has developed an exciting new concept for communications that allows people to follow a complete chronological thread of email, messages, instant messages (IMs), and other discussions. It's called Google Wave and a preview video can be seen at http://wave.google.com.
   

This week's news includes: the newly released Welsh 1911 census reveals that singer Tom Jones is actually three-quarters English; MyHeritage.com (www.myheritage.com) has announced a new version of its photo service that makes it easier to upload, share, and organize their photos online; EBSCO Publishing, one of the largest distributor of electronic materials to libraries and archives, and Footnote.com have announced a distribution deal that makes EBSCO the worldwide distributor of Footnote.com to libraries and institutions; Ancestry.ca, the Canadian geographical version of Ancestry, announces a partnership with the Library and Archives Canada in which the entire historical Canadian censuses, 1851-1916, have been released online at its site; and George spoke with Stephen Carr of our sponsor, NewspaperARCHIVE.com, and indicates that the newly announced free membership includes access to up to 5 pages per day at their site -- great for the casual user -- but serious researchers will want to subscribe to the full service.

The Guys are pleased to announce details of the RootsMagic Valentine's Day Cruise on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas, sailing from February 14th to 21st from Miami for a week's tour of the western Caribbean. Details can be found at Rootsmagic's website at www.rootsmagic.com.

The Guys are excited about going to Burbank for the Southern California Genealogical Society's JAMBOREE on June 26th to 28th. George will be moderator of "Son of Blogger," a panel discussion of blogs, podcasts, and videocasts. More details are available at the SCGS website at www.scgsgenealogy.com.

This week's email includes: Cheryl wants to know how to source a copy of a military record received from a relative; Kay corrects George on what happens on the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) when a spouse receives the Social Security benefits of a deceased spouse; Kay also shares a wealth of information about the land records related to Old Pendleton, South Carolina; Noi located the Pleasantville Cook-Book at the Internet Archive at www.archive.org (the cookbook is at http://www.archive.org/details/pleasantvilleco00clargoog); Jim shares information about UK copyright law and public domain; Lynda shares her experiences with CDs created by an Arkansas genealogy society, and requested a format for the Mac; Mac praises Drew's book, and thanks The Guys for encouraging him to begin lecturing; Gus is now researching his Polish ancestors, and questions how to enter the original name and the Americanized name into his genealogy database program; Blaise shares his experiences working with the "My Library" feature of Google Books (books.google.com); Sam clarifies information about a great-grandmother who immigrated from Austria/Poland to New York in 1902, and asks about immigrants held as LPCs (likely to become public charge); Victoria shares a poignant article in the Los Angeles Times about Josh Lipsky, a White House employee who made the trip with President Obama to Buchenwald concentration camp, and how he connected with his grandparents' story there (see article at http://tinyurl.com/BuchenwaldStory-LATimes); Katie discusses an article about Google Books, and a possible monopoly in digitizing out-of-copyright books (see article at http://tinyurl.com/qkgea2); and Kristin is concerned about genealogical societies choosing to restrict their Web content to "members only." (The Guys would like your input about this topic.)

This week's news includes: NewspaperARCHIVE.com announces that it is now offering free membership; Calico Pie, Ltd., announces the release of Family Historian Version 4 genealogy software at http://www.family-historian.co.uk; Ancestry.com announces new content, including German Phone Directories (1915-1981), the Alabama State Census, and more; and the Federation of Genealogical Societies has extended its Early Bird registration for its conference in Little Rock, AR, on September 2-5, 2009, and details are available at http://www.fgs.org/2009conference.

George and Drew send "shout out" greetings to: Birdie Holsclaw in CO; Veronica June Vinson in Hove, England (Happy Birthday!); and Michelle and the Glendale Chapter of the Family History Society of Arizona.

Ryan Oliver of Bozboz, Ltd., tells us about the site at http://www.howto.co.uk at which you can find many free books online, including genealogy materials.

Drew revisits the "Pleasantville Cook-Book," and discusses the issue of Google Books blocking access to it in Canada because of Canada's different copyright laws. Drew proceeded to research the three compilers of the 1894 cookbook in order to confirm that they are all deceased, and he will try to communicate with Google to lift the block on this cookbook. Listen to Drew's fascinating research experience.

This week's listener email includes: Paul, who works for the U.S. Postal Service, tells us that DNA test kits are not considered "hazardous" in the mails; Barb discusses locating the maiden name of Sam's Jewish-Polish grandmother that The Guys discussed in Episode #171; Patti asks what people's experiences have been in moving to RootsMagic 4; Tom reminds everyone that Soundex microfilm can be invaluable in locating people who may have been mis-indexed in census databases; Mac has the wikiHow gadget on his iGoogle page, and he found an interesting entry: "How to Cite a Wikipedia Article in MLA Format" at http://www.wikihow.com/Cite-a-Wikipedia-Article-in-MLA-Format; Bill tells us he has found a free iPhone app called Stitcher in the iTunes Store that "stitches together" news, talk, sports, and entertainment in an on-demand mobile application, and that he asked them to add our podcast to their lineup; MLR asks why someone who collected Social Security benefits may not be included in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).

George announces that RootsMagic is hosting another RootsMagic Cruise, sailing from Miami on 14 February 2010, cruising the western Caribbean, and returning to Miami on 21 February 2010. Details are available at http://rootsmagic.com/cruise. JOIN US!

 

This week's news includes: The Generations Network, Inc., parent of Ancestry.com, and FindMyPast.com are said to have approached ITV about purchasing Friends United; Everton's is said have come to a verbal agreement with a purchaser, and details will be announced shortly; the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE) announced the winners in their annual Excellence in Writing Contest last week at the NGS Conference in Raleigh, NC; MyHeritage has announced a fun gadget called the Look-alike Meter; Sirius Innovations, LLC, announced the Sirius Genealogist Web Directory; the Southern California Genealogical Society has issued a Call for Papers for lecture proposals for its 2010 Jamboree (details at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/2010jam-CallForPapers.htm); Irish indexes to statutory births, marriages, and deaths from 1845 to 1858 are now online at the FamilySearch Pilot site at http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html; and Ancestry and FreeBMD have partnered to post English and Welsh birth indexes from 1837 to 2005 online at http://www.ancestry.co.uk.

This week's email includes: Eric reports that the LDS Library catalog entry for microfilm containing the civil registration records for Faenza Italy, has been reinstated; and Steve provides updated details about the uses of handheld computing devices in the 2010 U.S. census.

Ancestors, the magazine published by The National Archives (TNA) in the U.K., has published an excellent article in its March 2009 issue titled "How to Read a Document." It presents methods for deciphering old documents. A sample document, a page of a letter written byPrincess Elizabeth on 17 March 1554, beseeching Queen Mary to free her from impisonment in the Tower of London, is included to let you decipher the document.

George shares the news that the National Archives of Scotland, the National Museums of Scotland, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, and the National Trust for Scotland have formed a joint venture and have launched a stunning new website, http://www.scotlandsimages.com.

Drew discusses the use of hashtags at websites, including the hashtag for the Southern California Genealogical Society's 2009 Jamboree: #scgs09.

George then discusses Jamboree and "Son of Blogger," a blogger summit panel discussion to be presented on Saturday, 27 June 2009, from 9:30 to noon. George will be in Denver this Saturday, 23 May 2009, and The Guys will present a seminar about RootsMagic Version 4 software for the Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) on 6 June 2009.

The Guys have invested in a new camcorder and plan to begin videoing some interviews and other materials. These will NOT replace the Podcast. Rather, the audio from any video recording will be published as an audio podcast, and the video will be published separately for anyone interested  n viewing the video. The Guys will begin videos at the Southern California Genealogical Society's 2009 Jamboree in Burbank at the end of June. The Guys think that this will provide another level of information for their listeners and fans.

The Guys welcome a new sponsor: NewspaperARCHIVE.com.

This week's news includes: Ancestors Magazine, the monthly publication of The National Archives in the U.K., is now offering selected past articles in PDF format for download at a modest fee at their Documents Online site (click here); Calico Pie Ltd. has released Version 4 of its popular Windows-based genealogy database software, Family Historian, at http://www.family-historian.co.uk; Directgov in the U.K. provides access to ordering civil registration records; Footnote.com has updated its content with over a million new images online; WorldVitalRecords.com has made an enhancement to its image viewer, making it possible to magnify to 200%; NewspaperARCHIVE.com will be sponsoring the popular National Public Radio (NPR) news and comedy show Whad'ya Know? on May 16th from Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, Iowa; and the Ohio Genealogical Society has scheduled the groundbreaking ceremony for its new 18,000-square foot library on May 29th at 10:30 AM.

This week's listener e-mail includes: Marty verifies that The Master Genealogist software accepts GPS coordinates; Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage Ltd. congratulates Drew on his new book, Social Networking for Genealogists, available from Genealogical Publishing Company; Lisa asks whether Everton's Genealogical Helper magazine is out of business, but The Guys have no information about this; Julie shared information about Steve Luxenberg's new book Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret, and Drew recounts the story he heard about the book on NPR (click here to listen to the story too); Gus recounts the lessons he learned on his recent research trip to Salt Lake City; Pat reports about migrating to Windows Vista and shares information about software compatibility; Pat also tells about having a brother take a DNA cheek swab, and that the postal clerk considered the package "hazardous"; Rich shares information about the U.S. Census Bureau's plans to use GPS technology in the upcoming 2010 census; Connie discusses a problem with automatic downloads of the podcast from iTunes, and Drew responds; Sam asks for suggestions for finding U.S. records for his Jewish great-grandmother who arrived in 1902; Noi asks for recommendations of episodes of the podcast that might be particularly helpful for beginners; and Noi also would like the Web address for the Pleasantville Cook-Book that Drew found online through Google Books.  Drew also discusses the advantages of being a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

This week's news includes: NBC has temporarily shelved the U.S. edition of the popular show, "Who Do You Think You Are?"; and Ancestry.ca, the Canadian version of Ancestry.com, has released a new database, Border Crossings from the U.S. to Canada, 1908-1935, which contains more than 1.6 million names. Drew eulogizes genealogist Donna Dinberg, the noted librarian from the Library and Archives Canada and an expert in Jewish genealogy, who died of cancer on 11 April 2009.

George's new book, the second edition of How to Do Everything: Genealogy, has just been published by McGraw-Hill, and the book is available from Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/HTDE2-GGM.

George and Drew discuss upcoming seminar appearances. George will be hosting a Webinar for Ancestry.com titled, Planning a Perfect Family Reunion, 14 May 2009 at 9:00 PM (Eastern). You can register at http://tinyurl.com/ReunionWebinar.

Listener email this week includes: Sharon reports that My Yahoo! is not updating the podcasts listings, and The Guys ask for any suggestions from other listeners; Melanie discusses contacting other researchers who have errors in their online family trees; Jill suggests having DNA testing done for your oldest relatives before it is too late; Timothy, a Mac user, asks for advice about how to use Windows-based CDs from his genealogy society that are DRM protected; Stella reports that she followed George's suggestions in his "The Genealogist as CSI" seminar, went back to reread everything on one ancestor, and was able to verify his participation in the War of 1812; Rollin reports on a free Windows-based program, Winsplit Revolution, available at http://www.winsplit-revolution.com, that "allows you to easily organize your open windows by tiling, resizing and positioning them to make the best use of your desktop real estate"; Matt Combs has developed a new piece of Windows-based software called Surname Findit, available for download at http://mattcombs.webs.com/sfmain.html, that helps decipher possible surnames from fragments you may have discovered in hard to read documents; Beth in Ontario, Canada, found an old cookbook from New York and wonders whether people would be interested in her digitized images of the pages (and Drew responds with his expert research method used to locate the book and digitized images); Rich forwarded the text of a 1984 death notice of a man whose wife's maiden name is Weinglass (one of Drew's ancestral lines); George asks for suggestions about how to cite alternate spellings of a surname in his database and source citations; The Guys thank Gus for his extensive research into articles in the Wall Street Journal concerning services that digitize photos, and these include:

Drew discusses anonymity in posting to professional mailing lists.

Drew is maintaining a blog to accompany his new book, Social Networking for Genealogists, at http://snfg.blogspot.com.

Topics this week include:

1. Loretto "Lou" Dennis Szucs receives the Silver Tray Award from the Utah Genealogical Association.
2. Ancestry.com includes new London-related content, including Births, Baptisms, Deaths, Burials, and Poor Law Records.
3. Leland Meitzler includes a calendar on his blog at genealogyblog.com.
4. The National Archives (UK) adds new information about Henry VIII.
5. The National Archives (US) at Kansas City, Missouri relocates to the Union Station Complex.
6. Readex, a division of NewsBank, adds a new product line : American Newspaper Archives.
7. WorldVitalRecords.com reveals an improved search and browse function.
8. The Ontario Genealogical Society will be holding its OGS Conference 2009 on May 29-31 at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario.
9. The Purcell Family of America has a new website at www.pfaroots.org and a Purcell surname DNA project (contact Doug Purcell at dpurcell@eufaula.rr.com)
10. A podcast listener asks for a medal after listening to all Genealogy Guys Podcast episodes between January 13, 2009 and now (but he's not happy with the newer music).
11. George meets someone at the front door with information about Census 2010.
12. A listener describes using Google's Picasa Web Albums to store and share photo albums.
13. A listener asks about the availability of New FamilySearch (because RootsMagic 4 provides a way to access it when it becomes available).
14. The CEO of Sampa Corporation contacts the Genealogy Guys to describe a free service to share life events with family and friends.
15. A listener asks whether or not everyone with the same surname (or a spelling variant) should be included in a genealogy database even if the relationship hasn't been established yet.
16. Melissa Shimkus of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana announces that new military content has been added to their site www.genealogycenter.info.
17. Joel Weintraub, associate of Steve Morse, responds to the idea of a one-step search for "everything", but one of his provided links is not quite the error message you may think it is.
18. Ian Pereira lets us know about his company's free book publishing site at HowTo.co.uk.
19. A listener asks for advice for a first-time visit to a national genealogy conference.
20. A listener asks about how to proceed with a DNA test that may confirm a family story.
21. A listener asks about pension files and NARA.
22. Drew talks about Dropbox, an online service that synchronizes working files across computers.
    

This week's news includes: The Generations Network announced the launching at its Ancestry UK site (http://www.ancestry.co.uk) of more than 400 years of London history, derived from records at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) and the Guildhall Library; and Footnote.com (http://www.footnote.com) has launched its new Great Depression Collection, including the Interactive 1930 U.S. Census, and additional records are coming soon.

George interviews Drew about his brand new book, Social Networking for Genealogists, published by Genealogical Publishing Company (http://www.genealogical.com).

This week's listener email includes: Steve discusses the new RootsMagic version 4 and the RootsMagic To-Go; Rich suggests another way of telling someone that there's a mistake in their research; he wonders if Stephen Morse would consider a single-search step at his One Step website; and he asks if George has more information about Brisco Holder (and George shares some surprising information); Drew responds to a question about copyright for Nancy; Jimmy shares information about great YouTube videos of "Depression Cooking with Clara" at http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking, and suggests that video interviews with family members doing something they're comfortable doing is a great way to capture information; Clive in the U.K. shares details of his research concerning U.K. criminal records and the online catalogue of The National Archives in Kew (outside London) and some surprising results about James Derrick; Sue shares information about WeRelate.org (http://www.werelate.org), a free public-service wiki for genealogy sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy in partnership with the Allen County Public Library, that allows the uploading of genealogy data and photos; Jack asks for suggestions about where to upload scanned Bible records; and Roxanne asks for help from listeners in order to locate companies that can scan large quantities of family photographs.

This week's news includes: RootsMagic releases Version 4 of its great genealogical database software; NBC will begin broadcasting the American version of the popular British television show Who Do You Think You Are? on Monday, April 20th, at 7 PM; Ancestry.com has updated its 1940 census substitute and will soon be adding to the U.S. Public Records Index (USPRI); and the 1911 England and Wales census has been released online at http://www.1911census.co.uk.

Drew discusses Twitter, the social networking service being used for messaging.

This week's listener email includes: Joshua asks about adding multiple sources for multiple marriages at Ancestry.com; Craig asks a question about ways to access obituaries; he also asks about family tree-oriented websites at which family trees and family photographs; Claire informs us that Reunion (genealogical database for Macintosh from Leister Productions, Inc.) has just released their iPhone app to take your genealogy with you; James is looking for his great-grandparents in Smith Township, Robeson County, North Carolina; Michael shares information for locating naturalization records for immigrant ancestors - they may have received land under the various U.S. Homestead Acts, and the Bureau of Land Management General Land Office (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov) may have information in the case files about naturalization; Kirsten asks how to receive the podcast on her TiVo; Jerry asks about additional sources for locating his Irish ancestors who received a land grant in 1790 in Pendleton District, South Carolina; Joel Weintraub shares more information about the 1940 U.S. census, which will not be released on microfilm, and he is already transcribing information from the 1940 census enumeration district maps; he also talks more about the 72-year rule for release of U.S. census information.

We published episode #166 from 17 March 2009, but our podcast hosting service experienced an outage of its primary server. As a result, this episode was published through all of its various feeds without the MP3 sound file.

Please reacquire this podcast episode from The Genealogy Guys Podcast website at http://genealogyguys.com through the iTunes Store. We're also attaching the MP3 file with this posting.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. We're compiling information for episode #167 and will have that published later this week too.

George & Drew