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.