George begins with the genealogical news:

▪       FamilySearch and The Generations Network, Inc., parent company of Ancestry.com, today announced an agreement that provides free access of Ancestry.com to patrons of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and the 13 largest regional family history centers effective today.

▪       Ancestry.com added 340.2M new names last week, including digitized and indexed newspapers from 10 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces, more than 4,5 new BMD records, and updated the British Telcom U.K. telephone directories with more than 71M new names.

▪       Ancestry.com also unveiled its new Learning Center at its U.S. Web site this week. It is now a multimedia experience with video tutorials and multiple new sub-screens with well-organized content.

▪       The California Genealogical Society and Library celebrates 110 years with an all-day seminar by nationally-recognized “Photo Detective? Maureen A. Taylor. Ms. Taylor’s lectures will focus on identifying and dating old photographs, preserving family photos, and identifying immigrant clues in photos. More information is available at http://www.calgensoc.org.

▪       The Denver Public Library has just received an IMLS grant of $778K to digitize historical materials in its collection relating to Denver and its historical neighborhoods, and will partner with other regional libraries. Read all about this project at http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/content/view/2148/2/.

The Guys share listener e-mail and commentary about: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps; professional looking “homemade? tombstones using pure White Portland Cement and metal molds – and an example of the result can be accessed here; a suggestion to look further into the new Ancestry.com U.S. Passport Applications database for more than just the front/back of the application – often lots more information and photographs are included; filing systems are discussed; and a listener in Germany listens while driving the autobahn!

Drew discusses Macintosh operating systems and browsers, and then recaps new Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/) reviews of four genealogy programs: Reunion 9.04 from Leister Productions (http://www.leisterpro.com); MacFamilyTree 4.4 from Only Mac Software (http://www.onlymac.de) ; Heredis 10.2 from DSD Concept (http://www.myheredis.fr); and iFamily for Tiger 2.2 by KS Wilson & Associates (http://ifamilyfortiger.com).

George discusses a compilation book published by Ancestry.com in 2002 titled French-Canadian Resources, an excellent resource for those with French-Canadian ancestors.

 The Guys wish everyone a very Happy Holiday Season!