The news includes:

• A new genealogical service called genealogyDOTcoach has been launched at https://genealogy.coach that makes professional genealogists available for short, inexpensive consultations to help you extend your research and get past brick walls.
• MyHeritage announces their new DNA matching service, allowing you to upload your DNA testing results and/or order testing kits. Learn more at http://blog.myheritage.com/2016/09/dna-matching-now-live/.
• MyHeritage announces the publication of 33 million Finnish church records online.
• RootsMagic answers questions concerning its planned sync with Ancestry by the end of this year.
• WikiTree announces a Source-a-Thon on 1-3 October 2016. Learn more at wikitree.com/Source-a-Thon.
• Findmypast launches an economical 12-month for $34.95 in the U.S. market.
• Findmypast launches a large variety of new collections and additions to existing ones.
• ScotlandsPeople has announced that it will be offline from 23:59 (BST on Wednesday, 21 September 2016 until Monday 26 September as they work to install the new ScotlandsPeople website.
• Ancestry.co.uk has announced the launch on 7 September of a new podcast series titled “It’s About Time” narrated by Sir Tony Roberts.
• FamilySearch has launched it’s new Pressroom at http://media.familysearch.org.
• FamilySearch has made the records of the Guild of One-Name Studies available at its site.
• Drew summarizes the recent releases from FamilySearch.
• The Florida Genealogy Society of Tampa will host its annual Fall Seminar on Saturday, 1 October 2016, with guest speaker Judy G. Russell. An Ask-a-Genealogist program will take place on 30 September 2016 at the Florida History and Genealogy Library in the downtown main library. Details are available at http://fgstampa.org.

Listener email includes:

• Judith shares information about the online collections at the University of Chicago at http://photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/, http://photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/browse-sports.html, and https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/finding-aids/?view=digitized.
• Eileen thanks Drew for his discussion of RootsMagic and Evernote on the previous podcast.
• Timo shares a unique gazetteer for Germany and former German regions called GOV (Genealogisches Ortsverzeichnis) at http://gov.genealogy.net/language/select?lang=en. He also generously shared his slides from his presentation at RootsTech 2014 at http://compgen.de/userfiles/downloads/rootstech/GOV_DEV1231.pdf.
• Drew apologizes to John about any confusion between the mention of the Scozzari surname in the previous episode and his Salvatori Chisari. Anyone who can help on the latter can email The Guys and we’ll pass the message on.
• Richard asks for suggestions about locating information about Robert George “Bobbie” Jones in Florida records.

Drew talks about his ongoing organization project.

Drew gives a shout-out for Martha Ibanez Zervoudakis, secretary of The Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, Florida, for her recent program at the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa titled “Introduction to Cuban/Spanish Research.

George talks about a new blog he has started called “As George Remembers It” at http://georgegmorgan.blogspot.com.

Please help The Guys spread the word about our two podcasts:

• Support us at Patreon.com at (https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys).
• Tell your friends and genealogy society members about us.
• Leave a review at iTunes.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

The news includes:

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announces the locations of its conferences through 2020.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announces a partnership with the National Park Service for a new preservation project.
• The Association of Professional Genealogists has announced its 2017 Professional Management Conference.
• Findmypast announces release of Irish Outage Reports, and additional Non-Conformist records for England & Wales.
• Drew discusses the wealth of new records released by FamilySearch.
• The World War II Research and Writing Center announces a new educational program.

Listener email includes:

• Debra asks about genealogy software, and she looks for recommendations for locating German records online.
• Eileen asks Drew why not use the to-do list, research log, and other facilities of a genealogy program rather than other software programs.
• Mike follows up about file numbering discussed in episode #312.
• Mary Ann writes to say how much she enjoyed the interview with Cyndi Ingle on the Genealogy Connection podcast.

The Guys review some fantastic books, just in time for the FGS Conference and the Fall-Winter genealogy seminar season:

• Trace Your German Roots Online by James M. Beidler (Family Tree Books)
• Map Guide to Luxembourg by Kevan M. Hanson (Family Roots Publishing Co.)
• German Census Records 1816-1916: The When, Where, and How of a Valuable Genealogical Resource by Roger P. Minert, PH.D., A.G. (Family Roots Publishing Co.)
• Stories from the World War II Battlefield, Volume III, Writing the Stories of War by Jennifer Holik (Generations)
• Stories from the World War II Battlefield, World War II Writing Prompts by Jennifer Holik (Generations)
• Faces of War: Researching Your Adopted Soldier by Jennifer Holik (Generations)

Please help The Guys spread the word about our two podcasts:

• Support us at Patreon.com at (https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys).
• Tell your friends and genealogy society members about us.
• Leave a review at iTunes.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

 

Michael Lacopo is an expert in German-American research, and in this episode, discusses how he became a speaker and researcher, why reading journals for examples is so important, why research plans are vital, and why he chose to blog about his recent experiences in using DNA to discover his mother’s birthparents. 

The news includes:

• MyHeritage announces a number of new things:
  • PedigreeMap plots births, marriages, deaths, photos, and other data from your family tree to an interactive map.
  • The “Chronicling America” newspaper collection from the Library of Congress has been added to the collections.
  • Denmark Census Records have been added.
  • MyHeritage Treehouse is announced.
• Findmypast announces new records for Yorkshire, Staffordshire, New South Wales 1891 Census, and new records for Scotland.
• The Association of Professional Genealogists has named Mary Penner as managing editor of the APGQ.
• The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society announces the publication of a new book, New York City Archives: An Authorized Guide for Family Historians.

Listener email includes:

• Beverly comments on the recent Genealogy Connection podcast interview with Cyndi Ingle.
• Elizabeth Lapointe comments on Gigi’s search for York County/Toronto and Vermont records discussed in GGP episode #311.
• Leslie comments on Drew’s new book.
• Matt raises a DNA question about matches within a limited [endogamous] population.
• Lois asks Drew about his discussion of organizing folders in Dropbox, specifically about the use of numbers.
• Joanne used Drew’s discussion of organizing Dropbox folders to get her folders in better shape.
• Mike discusses his organizing scheme for folders on his family using an Ahnentafel approach.

The Guys give listeners a scoop about a new service called genealogyDOTcoach at http://genealogy.coach. It is a new way to get professional assistance without committing to longer term professional researchers’ contracts and fees. In Beta mode at present, the service offers appointments with any of 25 experts in a variety of topics to provide professional advice to help advance your research. Private appointments are available in 15-minute increments for a reasonable fee. Look for a formal press release in the next few weeks.

Help The Guys spread the word about our two podcasts:

• Tell your friends and genealogy society members about us.
• Leave a review at iTunes.
• Support us at Patreon.com (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2684555).

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

Cyndi Ingle, probably best known for creating the amazing Cyndi’s List directory of genealogy websites, talks about technology and methodology.  She discusses what it’s like to move from one genealogy database program to another, her experiences in both speaking at and attending genealogical institutes, and what she sees as the issues that genealogists have with acquiring technology skills.

Drew gives George the week off, and begins with the following news:

• Evidentia Software has a special deal for purchases made between August 31 and September 14, 2016, such that 10% of all sales in the Evidentia store will go toward the War of 1812 Pension Digitization Project.
• FamilySearch's recent indexing event involved a record number of indexers!
• The 2017 International Germanic Genealogy Conference will be held in Minneapolis in July, and more information can be found at www.ggsmn.org.
• BCG and Legacy Family Tree Webinars have partnered to produce free live webinars.
• Findmypast has released a variety of new records, in particular a very large collection of materials relating to crime.

Listener email lets us know about:

• A Florida man was discovered to have been leading a double life, because someone discovered a marriage record for a man who should have been deceased.
• Chris indicates why she enjoys the podcasts, and gives feedback on the new podcast series.
• Gigi has a dilemma about whether to update a birth location on FamilySearch on the basis of the sources she has discovered.

Drew describes his new 3-month digital organizing project, the details of which can be found in recent posts to his own blog, rootsmithing.com. 

Jen Baldwin, North America Data Licensing Manager at Findmypast, shares her experiences in being both a producer and consumer of genealogical social media.  She shares tips in using Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for genealogy, and explains how #genchat works (with a suggestion on using nurph.com to keep up with the chat). She and Drew are both fans of the organizing tool, Trello (at trello.com). Jen also recommends the book Understanding and Using Baptismal Records by John T. Humphrey.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage announces a new feature, SuperSearch Alerts, that repeats previous searches and seeks new results in new and updated collections.
• Jay Verkler has been appointed as Interim CEO at Findmypast.
• APG has named Annette Burke Lyttle as the coordinator for the 2017 APG Professional Management Conference.
• A new website called Open Archives (https://www.openarch.nl/?lang=en) provides access to records (information and scans) of civil registry, church registry, military and personnel administrations kept by Dutch archives.
• Findmypast has added U.S. Naturalization Petitions and U.S. Passport Applications and Indexes to their site, as well as additions to their English monumental inscriptions collection.

Listener email includes:

• Jean King shares information about her blog for the West Hempstead [NY] Public Library at http://genealogy.whplibrary.org.
• Jenny wrote concerning Gus’ search for sources related to the Settlers of Beekman Patent in New York and advises that the books are available online at the NEHGS website at AmericanAncestors.org (http://www.americanancestors.org).
• Carolyn asks about moving a GEDCOM-format file from Family Tree Maker to RootsMagic.
• Ron is researching his Massachusetts ancestors Jeduthan Taber and Mary Pope, and welcomes help from listeners.
• Arnon Herskowitz advised us that that the Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, an international, peer-reviewed academic journal, has just published a Special Issue on Genealogy & Family History. “This is a huge step in the long journey towards academization of genealogy, and I'm very proud to be part of it as the SI Guest-Editor.” You can read the journal online at http://www.jmrpublication.org (Volume 8, Number 1, via the left menu).

The Guys discuss their recent research trip to South Carolina, in particular their visits to five (5) cemeteries and the different goals for visiting each one. They visited the Hal Kohn Memorial Library and its genealogical holdings in Newberry, South Carolina, got together with family and friends, and visited the Carter and Holmes Orchids greenhouses (and bought a couple orchids, too).

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

Donna Moughty, an expert on Irish research, shares her experiences in leading research trips to Ireland, as well as tips on how to prepare before you go. Learn even more about Donna at moughty.com.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage announced the addition of the 1911 Canada Census records to MyHeritage SuperSearch.
• MyHeritage also unveiled PedigreeMap, an online family history map that provides new geographical and historical insights into your family history.
• Leading presenters at the 36^th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies’ International Conference on Jewish Genealogy have agreed to make their lectures available through live streaming, and then available on demand until 11 November 2016. Visit www.iajgs.org for details.

Listener email includes:

• The Guys have received lots of good feedback about the new podcast, Genealogy Connection, which now alternates with this one.
• Connie asks about how to record a place of death for an individual: the place of residence at the time of death or the actual physical place of death.
• Will wrote concerning Gus’ search for sources related to the Beekman Patent in New York.
• Barbara provided insights into searching for South Carolina marriage records.
• Judy wrote to tell us about locating Irish Quaker records for her ancestors, including a surprising piece of content in a marriage record.
• Debi wrote about her quest for information about a Kentucky land record for Andrew Yandell.

The Guys discuss their upcoming research trip to South Carolina and share some tips for preparing for the trip and maximizing time onsite.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

Jessica Taylor, President of Legacy Tree Genealogists (a worldwide provider of professional genealogy and family tree research services) talks about how her company operates. She shares with Drew some tips on doing better and more efficient research.  Sites mentioned during the talk include MeasuringWorth.com (a site for converting historical amounts of money to current values), Dropbox, and Upwork (a site for finding freelancers).  

The news includes:

• MyHeritage unveiled an exciting new way to display your family tree with its Sun Chart.
• MyHeritage announced that it now allows the upload of DNA data to your family tree for DNA Matching.
• RootsMagic announces four new free Magic Guides.
• RootsMagic provides a Download Anytime Guarantee that allows you to download any of their software products in the event of a computer crash, deletion of the program, or loss of the file. You can also request your software registration key.
• The RootsMagic Facebook user group is now over 10,000 members strong, and there’s also a Facebook group for Personal Historian!
• Findmypast announces new additions to its collection of historic British Newspapers, new additions to the Yorkshire West Riding Marriages, Irish Petty Sessions Court Registers (1828-1912), and South Australia Rate Books.
• Ancestry has launched a new collection of more than 100 million Dutch records online.
• Melanie Frick, MLIS, is the 2016 recipient of the Suzanne Winsor Freeman Grant Committee and Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree Scholarship.
• FamilySearch announced that HISTORY® is launching a campaign to support The Freedmen’s Bureau Project, a call to action to encourage Viewers of the new “Roots” television series to volunteer to help with records transcriptions.
• Drew recaps recent new releases at FamilySearch.

George reads a press release announcing George and Drew's newest venture, a new podcast called Genealogy Connection.

George interviews Drew about Drew's new book, Organize Your Genealogy: Strategies and Solutions for Every Researcher, which has just been published by Family Tree Books in paperback and Kindle formats.

The Guys discuss a new way to support The Genealogy Guys Podcast using Patreon.com.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage unveiled an exciting new global initiative called Tribal Quest that seeks to preserve the histories of remote tribes. The first two Tribal Quest expeditions visited Namibia and Papua New Guinea. Video is available at the new websitehttp://www.tribalquest.org, and a video explaining the venture can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDKsQnru36s.
• The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) honored Christine Rose, CG, CGL, FASG, with Emeritus Status for her serive to BCG and her distinguished fifty-year career.
• Findmypast has released Battle of Jutland records, 13.5 million new British newspaper articles, and Ireland Electoral Registers (1885-1886).
• The German-American Genealogical Partnership announced the 2017 International Germanic “Connections” Conference to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 28-29 July 2017. More information is available at http://www.ggsmn.org/cpage.php?pt=70 and http://www.ggsmn.org/upload/files/2017_GAGP_Int._Conf._Flyer_COLOR_Version_(1).pdf .
• The Virtual Institute of Genealogical Research has announced its schedule for Summer and Fall of 2016. Information is available at http://vigrgenealogy.com.
• Drew discusses the newest releases from FamilySearch.

Listener email includes:

• Keith asks for details about connecting a second monitor to his computer, and Drew responds.
• Vic responded to Arthur’s inquiry in Episode #305 concerning sharing/donating family papers. He states that the Delaware Historical Society Research Library might be willing to accept the donations. More information can be found at https://www.dehistory.org/directions-parking/3-research-library.
• Tara writes to advise that Mary Page Greenleaf was her great-aunt, and that she is interested in the audio disks made at Ms. Greenleaf’s birthday party that Richard mentioned on Episode #300.
• Matt Miller shared his recent successes on tracing his Miller ancestors in New York City and Germany, and he shares four very important lessons that he learned. Read more at his blog post at https://matthewkmiller.blogspot.com/2016/05/miller-brickwall-shattered.html .
• Gus Marsh shares his Marsh brick wall from the Genesee County, New York, and asks for suggestions for locating more information about the Beekman Patent.

Drew reviews a new book by Lisa A. Alzo titled The Family Tree Polish, Czech, and Slovak Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Family Tree in Eastern Europe.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

The news includes:

• Congratulations to Drew Smith on his receipt of the 2016 Filby Award for Genealogical Librarianship! He received the prestigious award on 3 May 2016 at Librarians Day at the National Genealogical Society’s 2016 Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
• Evidentia has just hired Elizabeth Swanay-O’Neal as its new Director of Marketing and Social Media.
• MyHeritage has just launched its new MyHeritage Community section, a new online Q&A hub that fosters family history research collaboration.
• RootsMagic has added support and hints from Findmypast.com to Version 7 of its software, joining hints from FamilySearch and MyHeritage. The addition of Ancestry hints is under development and there are plans for implementation later this year.
• Findmypast has added 5.4 million Yorkshire records and over 10 million new U.S. marriage records to its collections.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has opened registration for its 2016 conference, "Time Travel: Centuries of Memories", to be held in Springfield, Illinois, on 31 August to 3 September 2016. An early bird discount is available. Visit http://www.FGSConference.org.
• Michael J. LeClerc, CG, has announced that Genealogy Professor has launched an exciting new educational opportunity for genealogists. Their offerings include self-paced courses and genealogy master classes. More information is available at http://www.genprof.net.
• Bill Nelson of RevGenea Software, LLC, has announced the availability of a new, free Android app named OldNews USA that makes it easy to perform quality research using the Chronicling America collection of historic newspapers at the Library of Congress. Learn more about features and see screenshots at http://revgenea.com.
• The Grand Duchy of Oldenburg Emigrants database just passed the 100.000 person mark. Learn more at the blog at http://www.familienkunde-oldenburg.de/auswanderer-datenbank-enthaelt-jetzt-100-000-personen/ , and access the database at http://www.auswanderer-oldenburg.de. (Access the database using Google Chrome and translate the page from German to your preferred language.)
• Drew discusses the newest releases from FamilySearch.

Listener email includes:

• In episode #305, Tom asked for suggestions about obtaining passport applications. George suggested contacting the USCIS. They referred Tom to NARA where he filled out a Freedom of Information Act request for the passport applications. He will keep us apprised of his progress.
• Alan poses a question concerning nieces and nephews who appear on census records in a family.
• Peter asks for advice about how to present genealogical information at a family gathering.
• Tim will be taking his older brother on a road trip to where his ancestors lived and are buried. He asked for suggestions about things to listen to as to why genealogy matters or why it is fun and rewarding.

George urges listeners to visit their local libraries, and to support them by volunteering to work on genealogical and historical projects.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage has released an exclusive book matching technology that matches 450,000 books with 91 million pages to match against your family tree and provide new hints.
• A new Jefferson Tayte genealogical mystery, Kindred, by Steve Robinson, has been published.
• The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) will hold its 36^th annual conference on August 7 to 12, 2016, at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle, Washington.
• Findmypast has released a significant collection concerning the Easter Rising and Ireland under Martial Law to commemorate the centennial of the event. They have also added 1.2 million Quaker records as the first phase of their project to add all surviving Irish Quaker records.
• Findmypast announced the renewal of their partnership with the Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) for another ten years.
• Findmypast has published over 911,000 Royal Navy Pension records.
• Calico Pie, Ltd., announced the addition the addition of automatic record matching and hints for Findmypast databases to their Family Historian desktop software program.
• Drew recaps the new FamilySearch collections.

Listener email includes:

• Michael responded to Debi’s inquiry about Kentucky ancestor Andrew Yandell and may be able to help her with that brick wall.
• Rich offers another suggestion for how to get the word out that might dispel long-held incorrect beliefs about a well-known person in the past.
• Arthur wants to share his research about his grandmother’s Jenkins line and asked for suggestions on how to accomplish this. He also has reached out to the USCIS for naturalization papers for his Eastern European family, and asked for other suggestions for tracing those ancestors.
• George complained that the Erie County, New York, Public Library has not responded to an ask-a-librarian inquiry. He seeks help from anyone who can check the city directories that include Williamsville, NY, for 1946-1948 for names of any orphanages operating in the area.
• Tom is seeking passport information about his wife’s mother and family, and asked for suggestions on where to obtain passport documentation.

Drew and George each discuss recent research cases they have been working on.

George urges listeners to visit their local libraries, and to support them by volunteering to work on genealogical and historical projects.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage has released Family Tree Builder 8.0, a new version of its genealogy software program. There is also a new Audio Recordings feature in the MyHeritage mobile app.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies has implemented a major new project – The Guild Members’ Website Project. Learn more at http://one-name.org/the-members-websites-project-mwp.
• Mocavo has closed down and has been merged into Findmypast.
• Findmypast announced the release of new records.
• Drew recaps the new FamilySearch collections.

The Guys discuss the activity initiated by J. Paul Hawthorne on Facebook wherein people compiled geographical pedigree charts showing the places of birth of five or more generations of their ancestors.

Listener email includes:

• Mike asked The Guys for suggestions to help identify the origins of his ancestress, Ellen Delaney, who married Teunis Westdijk in Paterson, New Jersey.
• Drew responds to inquiries about the recent controversy concerning GEDmatch.com. Debi asks a question about a note found with an early Kentucky Land Grant file for her ancestor.

Drew discusses his research on his great-grandmother, Elizabeth “Betty” Foshee, as a result of a DNA match and other evidence he has found.

Visit the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website at http://ahaseminars.com for Our Speaking Schedule and join us at conferences across the United States.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage introduces Record Detective II, a new technology that expands record matching capabilities to more than 2.2 billion new record matches.
• TLC has announced the celebrities for the Spring season of Who Do You Think You Are? which premieres on Sunday, 3 April 2016.
• Registration is now open for the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records at http://www.gen-fed.org.
• Calico Pie Limited has released an upgrade to its Family Historian program.
• Findmypast has added more indexed Irish records.
• FamilySearch announces that the transcriptions of the Freedmen’s Bureau have reached the halfway point, but more volunteers are needed.
• Drew recaps the new FamilySearch collections.

Listener email includes:

• Michael shares his file name system.
• Chad is seeking information about genealogy degree and certificate programs.
• Jenny asks for tips for using GEDmatch.
• Debi shares two online newspaper resources for Oregon:
  • Historic Oregon Newspapers at http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu
  • Genealogical Forum of Oregon (GFO) at http://www.gfo.org.
• George shares an interesting story about a lock of hair for his ancestor John Hart, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
• Paul asks a question about copyright on translated/transcribed original documents, and another question about how to correct a long-standing piece of erroneous information.

The Guys discuss the GEDCOM format and what it does.

The Guys also discuss putting your ancestors into context in the community.

The news includes:

• Aha! Seminars, Inc., celebrates its 20^th anniversary.
• Findmypast announces a number of partnerships as part of its U.S. growth strategy.
• Findmypast announces the beginning of the release of the largest online collection of U.S. marriages from 1650 to 2010.
• Findmypast announces the launch of 10 million Irish parish register records.
• Findmypast has made its 1939 U.K. National Register browsable; announces 6.4 million new British newspaper articles; and more than 45K new images in its PERSI collection.
• RootsMagic has announced that its software will be able to display Ancestry.com hints, search for Ancestry records, and share data with your Ancestry tree, all from within RootsMagic.
• RootsMagic has also announced that it will be adding the ability to include hints from Findmypast.
• MyHeritage introduces a new Family Tree Builder software version 8.0 that includes rewritten internal infrastructure that supports very large family trees (up to 500,000 individuals) and accelerates performance.
• The Suzanne Winsor Freeman Grant Committee and the Southern California Genealogical Society have announced that applications are being accepted for the 2016 Student Genealogy Grant. Applicants between the ages of 18 and 23 and a current student are eligible for the $500 cash award and a full registration scholarship to the 2016 SCGS Jamboree to be held in Burbank, California, on 3-6 June. Application deadline is midnight PDT on 20 March 2016. Full details are available at http://thefamilycurator.com/swf-grant/.
• Ancestry.com announces the launch of 10 million Irish parish register records.
• Drew recaps the recent releases of records by FamilySearch.
• A new family history-related reality show titled Relative Race premieres on Sunday, 28 February 2016, on BYUtv.
• An eight-episode docu-series, Long Lost Family, will premiere on Sunday, 6 March 2016, on TLC.

Listener email includes:

• Jody would like to connect with joshthegenealogistguy. He should send an email to The Guys at genealogyguys@gmail.com and we will help them connect with one another.
• Geoff asks about source and file naming conventions.
• Nancy writes to share the NYS Historic Newspapers site at http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/.
• Mac’s New Year’s Resolution is to blog more, and an example can be found at ( http://aweekofgenealogy.com/finding-joseph-mcmahon-and-the-51st-pioneer-infantry-regiment-ny-company-b/ )
• Carla asks for suggestions for locating church records in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Guys discuss RootsTech 2016.

The news includes:

· MyHeritage has added Audio Recordings to its mobile app.

· Evidentia has filled all the preorders for The Evidentia Companion and has produced a supplemental Evidentia Quicksheet Guide.

· RootsMagic is shipping backorders of its book, and an e-book is also now available.

· The Federation of Genealogical Societies has surpassed the $2 million mark in its fundraising efforts for the Preserve the Pensions project.

· Findmypast and its sister site Mocavo have come together, and all of the free materials at Mocavo will continue to be free. Findmypast has released a number of new collections including the England, Phillimore Marriage Registers, Scotland Registers & Records, additional Irish Newspapers, and others.

· The National Archives in the UK has announced new prices for a variety of services, effective February 1, 2016.

· FamilySearch, in partnership with Ancestry.com, has released more than 220 million new searchable Mexican birth, marriage, and death records dating back to the 1500s.

The Guys provide a recap of upcoming conferences, seminars, and webinars that they will be presenting in the next several months.

Listener email includes:

· Richard acquired audio discs recording the 80th birthday of Mary Page Greenleaf, and reports that he made a typo on the date of the event. It should have been 21 September 1954. Listeners Donna and Lucia report that they have uncovered more information about the lady, and The Guys will forward their emails to Richard for follow-up.

· Matt is seeking suggestions to help locate information about his Houghtaling ancestors in New York state.

· Chris acquired a book in 2014 on the Dyer family in Oregon that came with an envelope with over 200 black-and-white original photographs, as well as draft pages for inclusion in a future edition of the book. He would like some assistance in locating any descendants so that he can get the pictures to the appropriate owner. He can be reached at chistopher.hettinger@gmail.com.

· Jackie asked for clarification about transcribing newspapers and other, more modern documents, and the benefit of doing so.

· Jim had questions about the new Newspapers.com Publisher Extra, a subscription service that provides unique access to many newspapers' archives that are still under copyright.

· Jenny had a couple of DNA questions concerning her husband's Y-DNA test results and potential matches.

The Guys are pleased to announce their 300th episode of the podcast.

The news includes:

· Evidentia has been reviewed by the Federation of Genealogical Societies FORUM magazine in its Winter 2015 issue.

· D. Joshua Taylor has been appointed president of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

· MyHeritage has been featured on the popular Israeli TV program HaTsinor. You can view the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZJ--TAM2q0.

· The New England Historic Genealogical Society has partnered with the Congregational Library & Archives to digitize more than 28,000 pages of early manuscript church records, 1641 to the mid-1800s.

· ScotlandsPeople has released new Scottish births, marriages, and deaths from the 20th century.

· Findmypast has released updates to its Irish and British newspapers collections.

· The Guild of One-Name studies released its membership numbers for 2015. They have reached a new membership landmark.

· Drew provides a recap of new and updated FamilySearch collections.

Listener email includes:

· Richard has acquired audio discs recording the 80th birthday of Mary Page Greenleaf on 21 September 1984, probably in Northern California. He is trying to locate relatives or descendants in order to restore the discs to the family. He would appreciate any assistance from our listeners.

· Debbie provides a link to an interesting article about how one man rescued files from the norm Berg Trials after World War II. The digitized files can be freely accessed at Cornell University. The article can be found at http://ezramagazine.cornell.edu/Update/Nov15/EU.Nuremberg.collex.html.

· Tom asked for information about where on the MyHeritage website their digitized books and publications can be found.

· Jenny reports in a follow-up email that her father's Y-DNA finally has a very close match.

· Doug asks for recommendations about transcribing and what The Guys actually do.

· Eddie shares information about a Mac genealogy database program called GEDitCOM.

· Danny, Barb, and Melissa shared their research goals and projects for 2016.

The Guys announce that Drew’s new book, Organize Your Genealogy, to be published by Family Tree Books, will be released on 1 July 2016. It is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

The news includes:

· RootsMagic has released an update to its RM7 software to facilitate migration of Family Tree Maker (FTM) data.

· MyHeritage offers its Family Tree Builder for PC and Mac with tree-syncing capabilities with their online tree.

· MyHeritage announces the addition of a huge and diverse free collection of over 150,000 digitized books relevant to family history.

· Findmypast has recently added new materials, including additions to the British Newspapers and a quarterly update to the Periodical Source Index (PERSI).

· FamilySearch, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) have announced exciting milestones in the historic Freedmen’s Bureau Project (DiscoverFreedmen.org).

· Drew recaps recent additions and updates to FamilySearch.

· The National Institute on Genealogical Research has announced that the institute’s name was changed on 22 December 2015 to the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) and its website is now located at http://www.gen-fed.org.

Listener email includes:

· Discussions continue about Ancestry.com’s retirement of its Family Tree Maker desktop genealogy software. Opinions are expressed about whether to change to another software program, remain with the existing program, or migrate to a cloud-based family tree facility.

The Guys discuss their upcoming genealogical research goals and projects for 2016. They also want to hear about yours!

In this themed episode, George and Drew discuss desktop genealogy software. The episode begins with Drew's quoting from the Ancestry.com announcement about retiring Family Tree Maker. George and Drew discuss what programs they have used over the years, and Drew provides a history of the Family Tree Maker product. Drew and George explain what GEDCOM means and why it is useful, and discuss issues involving syncing of any kind of data. Finally, the Guys make recommendations as to what genealogists can do going forward.

Listen to the ads for RootsMagic and Evidentia for great holiday savings for a limited time!

The news includes:

· RootsMagic announces the availability of Personal Historian for the Mac, a new book, videos, and a Facebook group for users. You can also install PH on both a PC and a Mac with the same user key.

· The Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy (CAFG) is accepting applications for a $225 scholarship to the 5^th Annual Forensic Genealogy Institute (FGI), to be held March 10-12, 2016. Registration for the FGI is open at http://www.forensicgenealogists.org/institute/. The scholarship is open to anyone wishing financial assistance to attend. Send a request of not more than 400 words to institute@forensicgenealogists.org explaining how the scholarship might best help you in the field of forensic genealogy. Deadline is Friday, December 4^th, 2015.

· MyHeritage adds a new search innovation called SearchConnect^TM which enables users to connect with others who are searching for the same ancestors or relatives and to take advantage of search synergies.

· Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin will be one of the keynote speakers at RootsTech on Saturday, February 6, 2016.

· The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) has elected Billie Stone Fogarty as president for 2016-2017.

· Findmypast has announced the release of a number of new collections and the addition of 3.7 million new articles to its Historic British Newspapers collection.

• FamilySearch has marked the 50^th anniversary of the Vietnam War by releasing two new online collections of records of casualty records from NARA.

· Drew highlights new and updated record collections at FamilySearch.

Book Review:

George reviews an excellent new book by Kerry Scott, How to Use Evernote for Genealogy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Organize Your Research and Boost Your Genealogy Productivity.

Listener email includes:

• Jim asks about DNA.land at https://dna.land and how it compares to GedMatch.

· George recaps his research information for Nona concerning her Suit/Suits family in the Rome, Georgia, area.

· Mike would like to connect with Ryan regarding New Jersey death records.

· Michael has questions about the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) and the Social Security Applications and Claims collection now at Ancestry.com.

· Kathy has questions about the Wilson families of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. George restates the information about two books he mentioned on an earlier podcast, and he will check again for possible family connection in his ancestral line. The books are:

• Alexander, John Brevard: Biographical sketches of the early settlers of the Hopewell section and reminiscences of pioneers and their descendants by families. (Originally published in 1897 in Charlotte, NC, by the Observer Printing & Publishing House.) Reprint. University of California Libraries. Unindexed.
• Syfert, Scott. The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 2014.

George talks about the recent news from Russia concerning the investigation into the murders of the Romanov family, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and their five children, on 17 July 1918. New DNA testing has confirmed all the remains are from the same family, and the tomb of Nicholas II’s father, Alexander III, was opened to obtain DNA to confirm that the remains of the male was, indeed, Nicholai Alexandrovich Romanov.

Drew names four essential websites for genealogical research:

• FamilySearch Wiki at https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page with more than 82 thousand articles

· The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) at http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/

· The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) of the U.S. Geological Survey at http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/index.html for Domestic Names

· Chronicling America from the Library of Congress at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/, a source of digitized newspapers from 1836-1922 and the US Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present, at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/titles/

The news includes:

· MyHeritage.com has released 46 million Swedish Household Records (1880-1920) with images indexed. George describes how easy it was to find a specific family.

· The Germanic Genealogy Society and the German DAGV (Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft genealogischer Verbände (German umbrella organization)) joined forces for a partnership called "Bridging the Gap between North America and Europe for Genealogists“. More information is available at http://www.ggsmn.org/cpage.php?pt=68.

· RootsMagic announces that a single RootsMagic license covers both your PC and Mac. They have also released two new free Magic Guides: Creating a Shareable CD and Downloading and Installing RootsMagic for Mac.

· The New England Historic Genealogical Society has opened its Cemetery Collection on AmericanAncestors.org for free through November 7.

· Evidentia is working on Version 3 but does not expect it to be ready for RootsTech 2016 in February. They are, however working on new user guides and tutorial videos.

· The International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE) announces that the 2016 Excellence-in-Writing Competition is now open for entries through June 2016. Full details are available at http://isfhwe.com/competition.php.

· The Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) has announced that it will relocate its annual immersion classes in 2017 to the University of Georgia in Athens, and will be supported by the Georgia Genealogical Society.

· Findmypast.com has recently added new collections, including: England & Wales, Electoral Registers, 1832-1932; Britain, Absentee Voters Lists 1918-1921; Ireland Electoral Registers 1885-1886; New York Baptisms 1660-1862; New York Marriages 1639-1900; and New York Deaths & Burials 1758-1862.

· Findmypast.com opens its new collection, the 1939 Register of England and Wales on November 2, 2015, with records of more than 41 million people.

· The Illinois State Genealogical Society has announced the ISGS 2016 Webinar Series. Details are available at http://ilgensoc.org/cpage.php?pt=227.

· The FamilySearch Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, celebrated its 30^th anniversary on October 23, 2015.

· Drew highlights the FamilySearch.org collections updates for October 2015.

Listener email includes:

· Nona asked George to talk about research in the Rome, Georgia, area. She provided some names and George conducted searches in online municipal cemetery records. He discusses resources in that area which he has used.

· Jim writes about a new genealogical crime mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin. It is The America Ground, a Morton Farrier Forensic Genealogist Story. Drew has read and reviews the new book.

· Michael asks for advice from listeners concerning a brick wall about his grandfather who had three names.

· Jason is seeking help from our listeners concerning his third great-grandfather, John L. Brown, born circa 1811, and Brown’s wife.

· Eric recounts the details of his tenacious research concerning the death of his grandfather in 1927, who was killed by a Southern Pacific electric train.

The news includes:

· RootsMagic announces the availability of updates for the iOS and Android apps.

· The city of St. Augustine, Florida, celebrated the 450th anniversary of its settlement by the Spanish on September 6, 2015. The Los Floridanos Society also held a reunion where genealogical information was exchanged, and DNA samples were collected for a study by Dr. Theodore Schurr of the University of Pennsylvania.

· Ancestry.com launched the largest online collection of wills and probate records in the United States in September, more than 170 million documents from 1668-2005.

· Ancestry.com has renewed its digitization partnership agreement with the National Archives and Records Administration.

· AncestryDNA launched a new feature that allows individuals to share their ethnicity results.

· The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) announced the publication of The Great Migration Directory, Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640: A Concise Compendium by award-winning genealogist Robert Charles Anderson.

· FamilySearch.org announced that registration for RootsTech 2016 is now open.

· FamilySearch.org has added more than 2.7 million searchable historical records from the 1915 New Jersey State Census to its free online collections. The images are available on microfilm and they can be ordered for use at Family History Centers.

· Findmypast.com and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society have made thousands of documents and records from the society’s eLibrary available to search online at Findmypast.com.

Book Reviews:

George reviews two great new books by Jennifer Holik that focus on military research from the World War II era. They are:

• Stories from the World War II Battlefield – Volume 1 Reconstructing Army, Air Corps, and National Guard Service
• Stories from the World War II Battlefield – Volume 2 Navigating Service Records for the Navy, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Merchant Marines

Listener email includes:

• Gus extends his thanks to the listeners who provided their great translation of the information on Herb DeNoble’s tombstone relating to his unit during World War I.
• Angela and her son Luke shared some helpful and interesting information for genealogical research at Veritas Prep at http://wwww.veritasprep.com/genealogy-resources-by-veritas-prep/.
• Ryan is looking for information about the death of his great-grandmother in 1954.
• Debi asked for the names of the two books mentioned by George about Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. They are:
  • Alexander, John Brevard: Biographical sketches of the early settlers of the Hopewell section and reminiscences of pioneers and their descendants by families. (Originally published in 1897 in Charlotte, NC, by the Observer Printing & Publishing House.) Reprint. University of California Libraries. Unindexed.
  • Syfert, Scott. The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 2014.
• Jenny asks how does AncestryDNA come up with the "New Ancestor Discoveries" on its site?
• Larry provides a detailed clarification on the subject of marriage bonds.
• Matt asks Drew for tips about tracking down common-surnamed ancestors, including the use of DNA testing.

George and Drew celebrate the 10th Anniversary of The Genealogy Guys Podcast by sharing their thoughts on the genealogy research process. 

The news includes:

• Leister Productions has released a new version of its genealogy software, Reunion 11.
• The New England Historic Genealogical Society has reached an agreement to publish the journal The Mayflower Descendent, for the next 10 years. NEHGS has appointed Christopher C. Child as editor of the journal.
• FamilySearch had a total of 82,039 volunteers help during its worldwide indexing the event, held August 7-14, 2015.
• The Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy has announced its fifth annual Forensic Genealogy Institute to be held 10-12 March 2016 at The Historic Menger Hotel in San Antonio, Texas.
• The Family History Library has announced free online classes for September 2015.
• Findmypast has released new records for Northumberland, British Army Casualties (War of 1812), the British Jewry Book of Honour (1914-1920), Scottish Covenanters (1679-1688), Probate Calendars of England & Wales (1858-1959), and Hertfordshire records.
• FamilySearch has opened a new Family Discovery Center in Bellevue, Washington.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has broken ground for a first-of-its-kind facility in St. George, Utah.
• Drew discusses new FamilySearch collections published at its website in August 2015.

Listener email includes:

• Gabriella asks for suggestions for finding her family of Hispanic descent in Mexico (originally from Northern Spain) and George provides several suggestions
• Mahlon and Lucia responded to Gus's question in the last podcast and provided an interpretation of a World War I tombstone inscription: WAGR 356 AMB CO.
• Cheryl has a question about a collateral ancestor who was working in Germany in 1930, and whether he would've been enumerated in the 1930 US Federal Census.
• Jim reports that Tom Neel, Library Director for the Ohio Genealogical Society, provided information about Simon P. Rice of Company K, 66th OVI.
• Mike asked for suggestions for locating English ancestors in Cornwall, England, and George provides some suggestions.

The Guys discuss some favorite research facilities available on the Internet.

• Drew discusses Ancestry.com's new In Common DNA matching facility and how it can help in triangulation of common genetic ancestors.
• George discusses his recent successes using MyHeritage.com’s Smart Matches suggested by the site and other researchers. He also discusses RootsMagic’s hints facilities that interface with both FamilySearch and MyHeritage, and the excellent matching results that these have provided in his research.

Drew also discusses his new all-in-one printer, the Epson Expression ET-2500 EcoTank. This brand-new technology eliminates the need for expensive replacement cartridges by using tanks of liquid ink instead.

Drew goes solo this episode, hinting at an upcoming book and announcing his new Evernote "Genealogy at a Glance" publication.  He lets Amazon Echo users know that The Genealogy Guys Podcast is now available via TuneIn. And he is pleased to announce that Family Tree Magazine has selected the Podcast as one of their 101 Best Websites for 2015!

News includes:

• RootsMagic provides updates to address issues with FamilySearch changes and the new Windows 10.
• Ancestry launches a new free service in beta, AncestryHealth, and also announces that 1 million users have tested with AncestryDNA.
• Findmypast has added military school records, more Norfolk parish records, more Irish newspapers, and an update to PERSI.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies has added its 7000th member.
• FamilySearch and the LDS Church History Library has redesigned the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel website.
• FamilySearch has released tens of millions of new images and new indexed records from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Listener email includes:

• Pat’s story about the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters records.
• Peter’s humorous discovery involving an ancestor related in more than one way.
• Gus’s investigation of his maternal-side Lange family from Norway.
• Patti’s use of an unusual record set to add credence to a family story.
• Tracie’s disappointment with an online subscription service.
• Sherlene’s attempt to discover the identities of a couple in a combination photo that is marked only as being Lankfords from Clay County, Indiana.
• Gus’s hope that listeners can identify a gravestone marking that refers to World War I service on the Iowa, using the abbreviation WAGR 356 AMB CO.

The news includes:

· MyHeritage has launched a new technology called Global Name Translation to power its Family History Discoveries. The technology automatically translates names found in historical records and family trees from one language into another, with high accuracy, generating all the plausible translations.

· Evidentia has released its new software version 2.4, with revised citation templates based on Evidence Explained, 3^rd edition.

· FamilySearch International has appointed Steve Rockwood as President and CEO effective 1 October 2015 to replace Dennis Brimhall, who will retire.

· The National Library of Ireland has just released the digitized images of Irish parish registers at http://registers.nli.ie/.

· Heredis has announced the new version Heredis 2015 for Windows and Mac.

· Findmypast has announced the availability of the Findmypast Library Edition as a subscription offering for libraries and other organizations in the United States.

· Drew discusses FamilySearch's recent release of more than 15.6 million indexed records and images for its website.

The Guys discuss upcoming appearances and the Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa)'s annual Fall Seminar with special guest Cyndi Ingle.

The Guys share George's recent interview with noted genealogy speaker and writer Lisa Alzo.

Listener email includes:

· Bill has questions about DNA testing and methods of retrieving the data.

· Daniel discusses problems with uploading a GEDCOM file to FamilySearch.

· Steve recounts his recent successes with his great-grandfather, based on a suggestion from The Guys and recent additions of new data collections at Ancestry.com.

The news includes:

· FamilySearch has announced an important project to digitize and index the Freedmen’s Bureau Records. Learn more at http://discoverfreedmen.org.

· Ancestry.com has released its new version of its website with timeline and storytelling features.

· Ancestry.com’s new online courses at Ancestry Academy at https://www.ancestry.com/academy has a wealth of courses with the best genealogical speakers presenting today.

· Evidentia is reviewing its citation templates to insure accuracy and compliance with Elizabeth Shown Mills’ new third edition of Evidence Explained.

· MyHeritage has taken its Instant Discoveries filming to the streets of Oslo, with video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9wE_3Luh4I.

· Findmypast announces the release of new records.

· An update to the Iowa Prison Memory Project is announced,

· Drew discusses the more than 3.7 million new records released by FamilySearch in recent weeks.

Listener email includes:

· Steven discuses a Boston city directory from 1848 that included monument transcriptions from Auburn Cemetery.

· Arthur wants to know if The Guys are planning another research trip to England. The Guys ask whether there is interest in another trip.

· Steven provides a tip for locating obituaries of married women.

· Carole shares information about genealogical mystery books.

· Matt shares details about old newspaper articles that paint a “Wild West story.”

· Jen Baldwin provides a clarification about the recent release of Quaker records at findmypast.com

Drew discusses his recent experience in receiving an unexpected email about his Smith ancestors.

The Guys discuss research strategies for FamilySearch’s Descendency View.

Listen to The Guys on the “Talk Back Florida” radio show broadcast on Saturday, 23 May 2015. The recorded broadcast is available at http://www.newstalkflorida.com/talk-back-florida-creating-your-family-tree-with-the-genealogy-guys/ .

The news includes:

· MyHeritage has unveiled their new MyHeritage Stories website, showcasing some videos and stories capturing amazing discoveries made by users around the world. It can be found at http://www.myheritage.com/stories. (A link labeled User Stories can also be found at the bottom of the MyHeritage website.)

· The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced new editors of their electronic FORUM Magazine. Julie Tarr is the new Managing Editor and Jennifer Alford is the new Associate Editor. Congratulations!

· Drew discusses the more than 13.4 million new records released by FamilySearch in recent weeks.

· Findmypast has released a large collection of Dublin Workhouse records and additions to British newspapers.

The Guys review new books and magazines available for your reading and reference pleasure. All of the items are available through Amazon.com unless otherwise noted. The list includes:

The In-Depth Genealogist is a publishing company that provides educational resources to the genealogical community. Drew reviews: Going In-Depth magazine and a new book, Ancestors in a Nation Divided: An In-Depth Guide to Researching Your Civil War Ancestors, by Cindy Freed.

Other reviews include:

• George reviews Discover English Parish Registers, and Buried Treasure: What's in the English Parish Chest, both written by Paul Milner and published by Unlock the Past. The books are available at their website at http://www.unlockthepast.com.au.
• Drew reviews Photo Organizing Practices: Daguerreotypes to Digital by Maureen A. Taylor.
• He also reviews How to Archive Family Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide to Organize and Share Your Photos Digitally by Denise May Levenick.
• George reviews James M. Beidler’s book, the fourth edition of The Best of Roots & Branches. The book is available through the online store of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society at http://www.biblio.com/bookstore/lancaster-mennonite-historical-society-lancaster/genealogy-genealogical-research-aids .
• George reviews a new book, Guide to Hanover Military Records, 1514-1866, on Microfilm at the Family History Library by Teresa S. McMillin, CG.
• Drew reviews a new book, When Descendents Become Ancestors by David A. Kendall, PhD.

George reviews a new publication by Moorshead Magazines in their Tracing Your Ancestors series. The new title is titled Tracing Your Female Ancestor, Volume II. It is available at the online store at Moorshead Magazines at http://your-genealogy-history-store-usa.myshopify.com/collections/tracing-your-ancestors-series .

Drew shares two interviews that the Guys conducted while they were at the 2015 Conference of the Ohio Genealogical Society:

• Kris Rzepczynski, Senior Archivist at the Archives of Michigan, who tells the Guys all about the Seeking Michigan website and the great records in his archives
• Cyndi Ingle, speaker, writer, and the person behind the amazing Cyndi's List website

This episode focuses on death records.

The news includes:

MyHeritage CEO Gilad Japhet has been involved with research about a fascinating story from World War II. A Jewish tailor named Savas escaped the Nazis when they invaded Corfu, along with his three daughters and another girl, and fled to the island of Erikoussa. The entire island of Erikoussa joined forces, at the risk of death, to provide refuge and to protect the secret of their identity from the Nazis. Descendents of Savas have been located, and a fascinating video of a news story aired in Israel is available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oijpqpx2gY.

MyHeritage has just made its Instant Discoveries^TM available for all members at their site.

The Association of Professional Genealogists has announced membership discounts for younger and retiring genealogists.

Catholic Church Registers have been digitized and will be made available at the National Library of Ireland website on 8 July 2015. Genealogist Donna Moughty, an expert on Irish genealogical research, clarified what will be included and the fact that there will be no indexes available at that site.

Ancestry.com will relaunch their website with a number of new features, including LifeStory and Historical Insights, and enhancements to the Facts View and Media Gallery.

Findmypast has released many new records, including the ANZAC Prisoners of War collection, new records for Australia and the United Kingdom, new additions to the British Newspapers collection, new images for PERSI, and a substantial collection of Quaker birth, marriage, and burial records spanning the years 1578 to 1841.

The FamilySearch Historical Book Collection online has reached a milestone of 200,000 digital books available through its website.

Drew recaps the almost 30,000,000 records added by FamilySearch to its website in the last month.

Drew and George have an in-depth discussion about death-related records. Of special interest is Drew's discussion of the International Classification of Diseases that can be found at the Wolfbane site at http://www.wolfbane.com/icd.

The news includes:

· The Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant Committee has announced that applications are being accepted for the 2015 Student Genealogy award. Student genealogists between the ages of 18 and 23 are eligible to apply for the award. Application deadline is April 10, 2015 at midnight PDT. Details and forms are available at the Student Grant Webpage at http://www.thefamilycurator.com/swf-grant.

· MyHeritage will hold a free webinar on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, on How to Discover Your Scandinavian Ancestors.

· The Ontario Genealogical Society will host its 2015 conference on May 29-31 at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario, with the theme "Treks through Time".

· Ancestry.com has announced a new innovation at AncestryDNA called New Ancestor Discoveries.

· Findmypast released new military records for the United States and Britain.

· The Federation of Genealogical Societies issued a statement concerning the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It states its position and supports non-discrimination and non-bullying policies in all of its activities, including selection of conference facilities and vendors.

· RootsMagic has established a new Virtual RootsMagic User Group on Facebook.

· Ancestral Connections, the Irish Genealogy Summer School held at University College Cork will run 28 June-5 July 2015. Booking is available at http://www.ucc.ie/en/ace-genealogy.

· The Global Family Reunion has launched a crowdfunding campaign for its event on June 6, 2015, in New York City.

· FamilySearch has announced that the Knowles Collection, a quickly growing, free online Jewish genealogy database, has reached its one million record milestone. They can be accessed at http://FamilySearch.org/family-trees.

· Drew discusses highlights of the more than 8 million records recently added to FamilySearch.

Listener email includes:

· The Guys have received numerous compliments on its recent topical podcast concerning newspaper research.

· Kelvin recently discovered Historic Oregon Newspapers free online at http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/.

· Jim reports that the Gilbert and Martha Hitchcock Foundation has funded the digitizing and availability of the Omaha World Herold newspaper from 1867 to 1983. The collection is accessible through the Omaha Public Library with the use of a library card to login.

· Jana tells us of the new blog titled "The Genealogy Kids" at www.thegenealogykids.blogspot.com which also links to videos.

· Tracie asks whether the church records being released this summer by The National Library of Ireland will include records from Northern Ireland. Listeners are encouraged to share any information they know with The Guys.

· There is a new Jefferson Tayte genealogical mystery available titled "In the Blood".

· Julienne asks about genealogical research in Hong Kong Territory. George suggests the following resources may be of some assistance, and welcomes other suggestions from our listeners:

o https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Hong_Kong_Genealogy (FamilySearch Wiki)

o http://genealogy.about.com/od/china (Kimberly Powell of About.com addresses Chinese genealogical research)

o http://forebears.io/hong-kong (Hong Kong Genealogical Records for British Nationals and other resources)

o Hong Kong Family History Research and BMDs: http://hongkongfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/hong-kong-birth-marriage-death.html

o http://www.researchhongkong.org.uk (A professional researcher covering China and Hong Kong)

o There is a book titled “A Student's Guide to Chinese American Genealogy" by Colleen She (Oryx American Family Tree Series) that was published in 1996 that contains a substantial amount of methodological information about researching Chinese ancestry in modern times.

· Julia asks about recording same-sex marriages in genealogical software.

· Another listener reported about the importance of reading/searching through newspaper gossip columns for important family history clues.

Our next episode will be another themed podcast.

This episode focuses on Newspaper Research.

· Google Newspaper Archive – free, 1700s-2009, worldwide coverage, OCR. https://news.google.com/newspapers

· Fulton History – free, 1795-2007, but almost exclusively New York State, OCR. http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

· Elephind – free, 1803-present, OCR. Over 2700 titles, of which over 1000 are from Chronicling America. Includes Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. https://www.elephind.com

· GenealogyBank (personal subscription, $20/month, $70/annual, over 7000 titles, 1690-present) and America’s GenealogyBank (library subscription, over 4200 titles, 1690-1922) – product of NewsBank, OCR. http://www.genealogybank.com

· ProQuest Historical Newspapers (library subscription only) – major U.S. cities, international newspapers, African-American newspapers, Jewish newspapers. OCR.

· Newspapers.com (personal subscription, $8/month, $80/annual, over 3400 titles, 1700s-2000s) – OCR. http://www.newspapers.com

· NewspaperARCHIVE.com (personal subscription, $100/6 months, over 6200 titles, 1607-present) – OCR. http://newspaperarchive.com

· Access World News (library subscription, over 2400 titles) – 1977-present, product of NewsBank, born digital.

For additional reading, we recommend:

Breland, Claudia C. Searching for Your Ancestors in Historic Newspapers. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2014.

The news includes:

· RootsMagic has more than 40 free online classes in the form of recorded webinars at its website.

• MyHeritage announces:

o They have added 900 million records to its global digital archive.

o They have added millions of new records from Scandinavia, including the 1930 Danish census and the Swedish Household Examination Rolls from 1880-1920, with more scheduled for addition this year.

· Their Family Tree Builder software is now available for the Mac, and a native Mac version is in the advanced stages of development.

· The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced several important items:

o Registration is underway for the FGS 2015 Regional Conference in Syracuse, NY, on 17-19 September 2015.

o The FGS Alaska Cruise sails from Seattle, WA, for its voyage on 28 August through 4 September 2015.

o The Call for Presentation Proposals for the 2016 FGS Conference in Springfield, IL, has been released. Proposals are due by 10 April 2015.

· Findmypast has made a number of important announcements recently:

o Listen to the podcast for specifics about Findmypast’s fee access to all records this coming weekend.

o They have released 2.5 million new British newspaper articles to their collection; British Army Bond of Sacrifice records; East London Marriages; Derby Railway Servant’s Orphanage Registers; Irish Poverty Relief Loan records; British Merchant Navy WW1 Medal Index Cards; Dorset BMDs; and another 101 million US, UK, and Australian records.

o The company has partnered with the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society to bring wider access to New York records.

o They have announced a partnership with BillionGraves to bring more than 12 million grave marker indexes available.

o The company has begun offering DNA testing to its customers through a new partnership with FamilyTreeDNA.

· The British Library has opened its new National Newspaper Building for long-term archival storage and retrieval at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire.

· The National Library of Ireland ahs announced that it will give free online access this summer to its Catholic Church Records collection, the earliest of which dates back to the early 1700s.

· Ancestry.com has announced major developments for 2015:

o The website will receive a new and easier to use look.

o It’s iOS mobile app will introduce a full search feature to access their more than 15 billion records online.

o The company will launch Ancestry Academy in April 2015 with excellent educational videos on a wide array of topics.

o AncestryDNA is being improved in the US and UK markets, and AncestryDNA is being launched in Australia and Canada soon.

o Later this year, Ancestry will announce resources for users in Germany and Mexico.

o Many new record collections are planned for launch later this year for the US, Australia, and the UK.

• FamilySearch has made many announcements recently:

o The FamilySearch Discovery Center was recently opened in Salt Lake City, and others are planned for around the US.

o FamilySearch ahs announced a multi-year collaboration agreement with the New England Historic Genealogical Society

o Drew highlights the millions of new records added in the last month to FamilySearch.

o The Family History Library has announced its free on-site classes for March. You will want to check the schedule each month if you plan to visit the library in Salt Lake City.

Listener email includes:

· Kari has a question about ships’ passenger records for her 2X-grandmother whose ship sank coming from Denmark in 1889 and whose passengers were rescued by another ship, then sailing to Philadelphia.

• Timo shares links to:

o Bremen Passenger List at http://passagierlisten.de

o Oldenburg [Germany] Emigrants at http://www.auswanderer-oldenburg.de

o Both sites can be translated to English using Google Translate.

· Jim and Timothy share information about new genealogy mystery books/stories/novellas available.

· Jenny asks why there are no Greek records at the FamilySearch.org website.

· Several listeners responded with comments about Find a Grave and the ability to add records for persons who were cremated.

· Connie comments about cemetery photographs, Find A Grave, and copyright.

The next episode of the podcast will focus on the theme of Using Newspapers for Your Genealogical Research.

Drew and George have returned from RootsTech 2015 (a combined conference with the Federation of Genealogical Societies), and they share their interviews with:

• Jill Crandell of ResearchTies
• Ed Zapletal of Moorshead Magazines
• Angie Bush, a genealogist specializing in DNA
• A.J. Jacobs, the well-known journalist behind the upcoming Global Family Reunion event

The Guys will be at the RootsTech/FGS 2015 Conference in Salt Lake City on 11-14 February. Visit with them at the Moorshead Magazines booth where they will be signing books on multiple occasions.

George's new book, How to Do Everything: Genealogy (the 4th edition), has just been released by McGraw-Hill and is available in softcover and Kindle versions.

Moorshead Magazines has just published a new laminated quick sheet, Brick Wall Research Strategies, written by George and Drew. It is based on their best-selling book, Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques. Both books and the new quick sheet will be available for sale at the Moorshead Magazines booth.

The news includes:

· MyHeritage has just released their Family Tree Builder software for the Mac.

· FamilySearch has launched an App Gallery at their website that includes software applications for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

The Guys continue with a themed episode devoted to U.S. immigration and ships’ passenger lists.

The news includes:

· The early registration discount for the 2015 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference ends on January 23, 2015. The conference, in conjunction with RootsTech 2015, will be held in Salt Lake City on February 11-14, 2015.

· Findmypast has introduced a new program for its 12-month subscribers, including webinars as well as discounts with several vendors.

· Findmypast has announced the appointment of Ben Bennett as the new vice president of international business.

· The ScotlandsPeople service has introduced Scottish statutory births for 1914, marriages for 1939, and deaths for 1964 at its site.

· The British Ministry of Justice announced that their archive of 41 million wills dating back to 1858 have been made available online. Scanned copies of the wills can be ordered for a fee of ₤10.

· GenSoftReviews has announced its Users Choice Awards for 2014 at http://www.gensoftreviews.com/awards.php.

· FamilySearch announced the 10 most popular free online databases at their site.

· Margie Beldin won the free all-access pass to RootsTech 2015 with her technical tip about enlarging the screen size on your computer and then resetting it back to its default with CTRL + 0 (for PC) or CMD + 0 (for Mac).

Listener email included feedback on Episode #280 and The Guys' discussion about copyright:

· Jim asked the question about downloading a photograph, cropping and editing it, and whether there is a violation of copyright law or ethics. He also comments on photographs uploaded to Find A Grave and to family trees on sites such as Ancestry.com.

· Margaret has a copyright question about a collection of un-cataloged and un-indexed documents in a library that she encountered several years ago. She paid to have the papers microfilmed and then indexed and transcribed them herself, giving a copy of her work to the library. She has questions about to what extent she is allowed to use this collection and what copyright laws might apply to these old documents.

· Julie wrote that she knows our discussion about copyright was geared primarily to an American audience, and that we used the expression "fair use" in the discussion. She tells us that there is a similar concept in the UK called "fair dealing". It does not have any statutory definition but is a legal term basically used to assist in determining if something is in compliance with copyright or not. She provided a link at https://www.gov.uk/exceptions-to-copyright that describes exceptions to copyright that allow limited use of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner.

· Suzanne asks a question about people who choose to be cremated and have their ashes scattered but don't have any kind of Cemetery Memorial. Whereas she uses Billion Graves and Find A Grave in her research, she wonders if there is any equivalent site for cremated memorials. [The Guys welcome email from our listeners about this subject.]

· Kristi wants to know what we recommend as "must do" conferences and seminars each year.

Book review:

· Moorshead Magazines, Ltd., the publishers of Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy, and History Magazine, continue their publication of special research publications in softcover magazine format with a new title, "Tracing Your Italian Ancestors" written by Marcia Iannizzi Melnyk and Mary M. Tedesco. George gives the new publication a great review.

Our next podcast episode will be a themed discussion: “U.S. Ships’ Passenger List Records”. The Guys welcome your questions and suggestions on this subject at genealogyguys@gmail.com.

The news includes:

· MyHeritage has announced that they have entered into an agreement with the Danish National Archives to index census and parish records from 1646 to 1930 in their SuperSearch facility.

· Moorshead Magazines, Ltd., has announced that they are changing the name of their Family Chronicle magazine to Your Genealogy Today, effective with the March/April 2015 issue.

· George’s new book, How to Do Everything: Genealogy, 4th edition, will be released by McGraw-Hill on 16 January 2015 and will ship from Amazon and Barnes & Noble thereafter. The Kindle version of the book will follow shortly.

· George and Drew have written a new genealogy quicksheet called “Brick Wall Research Strategies” that will be published by Moorshead Magazines, Ltd., later in January. It is based on their best-selling book, Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques.

The Guys present a themed discussion about “Copyright for Genealogists,” with a focus on photographs. The Guys welcome your questions and comments on this subject at genealogyguys@gmail.com.

The winner of the All-Access Pass to RootsTech 2015 is Bill Wheeler. The Guys have notified him and will advise RootsTech 2015 to contact to make arrangements with him. Congratulations, Bill! We’ll see you in Salt Lake City next month! [UPDATE: As it turns out, Bill will be unable to attend RootsTech this year, so the new winner of the All-Access RootsTech 2015 Pass is Margie Beldin! We'll share her tech tip in the next episode.  Congratulations, Margie!]

There are date-sensitive announcements in this podcast episode.

The Genealogy Guys^SM announce additional keynote speakers for RootsTech 2015. The Guys are RootsTech 2015 Ambassadors.

You can win a free all-access pass to RootsTech 2015 from The Genealogy Guys Podcast! Simply submit your best technology tip for genealogy to The Guys. Send your tip to us at genealogyguys@gmail.com. Entries must be received by midnight Eastern Time on 31 December 2014. Include your name, address, email address, and telephone number.

The news includes:

• MyHeritage has launched a new facility called Instant Discoveries^TM that provides first-time users information about their ancestors and relatives while signing up for MyHeritage. Watch the video at (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQYCO1hFskU) to learn more.
• MyHeritage continues its challenge to preserve and digitize cemeteries worldwide. It recently spent a day at Israel's largest cemetery, Holon, with a small army of volunteers, and photographed 150,000 gravestones.
• Family Tree DNA has a sale on their DNA tests through 31 December 2014, including the Family Finder (autosomal), Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA tests.
• The National Library of Ireland is digitizing more than 400,000 images of Catholic parish record microfilms and publishing them online for free. The images will be online by the summer of 2015.
• The National Library of Australia now has the largest freely available collection of digitized newspapers in the world, with the 15-millionth page going online in December at its award-winning website, Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au).
• The Virtual Institute of Genealogical Research offers a new interactive option for courses. Learn more at http://vigrgenealogy.com.
• Findmypast has announced the release of millions of new records for the United States, England, Wales, Ireland, and Australia.
• Findmypast has announced the inaugural Findmypast Tree Competition and will award prizes across multiple categories. They announced their Start Your Family Tree Week from 26 December 2014 to 1 January 2015.
• Calico Pie has released Version 6 of their Family Historian software, which includes the MyHeritage Smart Match data matching.
• Unlock the Past Cruises has announced its 2015-2016 program of seven history and genealogy cruises at their website (http://www.unlockthepastcruises.com).
• The Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a collaborative project between the Joseph Smith Papers project and FamilySearch.org. A new website has been created at https://familysearch.org/joseph-smith-papers#/ to make this facility available.
• Drew shares information about new record collections and images released by FamilySearch.
• RootsMagic has released two new videos at their YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/RootsMagicTV:
• What's New in RootsMagic &
• Using RootsMagic Publisher to Create a BookMobile app news:

Mobile app news:

·      A new Android version of the Find A Grave app has been released and is available for free in the Google Play store.

·      Beverly asked for information about downloading the podcast onto her Samsung S mobile phone or Nexus 10 tablet. Drew found five Android apps for podcasts at http://www.androidcentral.com/top-5-best-podcast-apps-android/.

Book news includes:

• Janet Hovorka and Amy Slade have released two new Zap the Grandma Gap activity books for young people. These include My Jewish Ancestor and My British Ancestor. These join My Swedish Ancestor, My German Ancestor, My Civil War Ancestor, My Mormon Ancestor, My Pioneer Ancestor, and other titles. They can be ordered at https://zapthegrandmagap.com and at Amazon.com.
• Jim in Iowa suggested additional genealogy mystery books by Steve Robinson, an English writer whose main character is Jefferson Tayte. Four books have been published: In the Blood, The Lost Empress, The Last Queen of England, and To the Grave.

Listener email includes:

• Matt Miller updates us with news that there is now a Facebook page for the Fort Madison Prison Memory Project at https://www.facebook.com/fortmadisonprisonmemoryproject.

The Guys discuss genealogical research resources for Puerto Rico.

The next podcast will be a themed discussion: “Copyright on Photographs”. The Guys welcome your questions and suggestions on this subject (or on anything to do with copyright) at genealogyguys@gmail.com.

The news includes:

· RootsMagic has released new Version 7 of its award-winning software.

· MyHeritage has announced two strategic partnerships with Dutch genealogy services Alfaer and Coret Genealogie, and has launched a national TV marketing initiative in the Netherlands.

· MyHeritage and Family Historian, the genealogy software package created by Calico Pie, Ltd., have jointly announced that MyHeritage’s Smart Matching^TM and Record Matching technologies will be integrated into the software.

· MyHeritage and RootsMagic have jointly announced that MyHeritage’s Smart Matching^TM and Record Matching technologies will be integrated into the software. These are included in the new RootsMagic 7.

· The Federation of Genealogical Societies have announced their 2014 election results.

· AncestryDNA has launched a new, enhanced DNA matching in the beta version of DNA Circles.

· Findmypast has added the following records to its service:

o 256,000 new wills and probate records and over 86,000 pages of Irish Directories and Social History records

o Pettigrew & Oulton’s Dublin Almanac & Gen. Register of Ireland, over 1.7 million Devon Parish records, and over 250,000 Devon Wills.

o 953,000 District of Columbia vital records, 18 new U.S. periodicals, new Irish Survey Maps & Plans, U.K. School Registers, and over 4,000 Prison Ship Registers (1811-1843).

o Over 13 million Scottish births, baptisms, and marriages, 1.3 Irish newspaper articles, and 1895 Gazetteer for England and Wales, and U.S. records from Iowa, Oregon, and Arizona.

· FamilySearch has added vast numbers of World War I U.S. draft registration records, U.K. World War I Service Records, and U.K. World War I Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps Records.

· Drew recaps the new records added by FamilySearch in November 2014.

· FamilySearch recaps 120 Years of Pioneering Genealogy, and provides statistics of FamilySearch as of October 2014.

George shares information about genealogy apps, including:

• Pic Scanner (See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae-xR9NRYvs.)
• Research Logger for iOS 8.

· Wolfram Genealogy & History Research Assistant for iOS 8.

• Find A Grave for iOS 8.

Drew reviews a new book: The Lost Ancestor: A Genealogical Crime Mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin.

Listener email includes:

· Barry A. Fleig announces a new database of cemetery interments in a forgotten cemetery in Chicago, Illinois, at http://cookcountycemetery.com.

· Jitske shared an article about a Belgian woman who ‘adopted’ the grave of a World War I soldier buried in Flanders Field Cemetery in Belgium, and who endeavored to trace family members and their descendants. The complete article is currently available at http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/life/inspire/2014/11/07/belgian-woman-grateful-american-soldiers-sacrifice/18647569/ .

· Ellen shares her experience working on a brick wall for her second great-grandmother and the problems she experienced by making invalid assumptions.

• Ed wrote concerning Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, and asked how much source referencing should be done on the more than 3,500 images in his archive. He also wanted to know what resources are available for learning more about using source citations/references.

· Ben asked for advice about what is an appropriate dpi setting and file format that should be used when scanning family photographs.

The news includes:

· The Guys have been named RootsTech 2015 Ambassadors for the upcoming conference on February 11-14, 2015, in Salt Lake City.

· RootsTech 2015 has announced two special speakers at the conference. They are:

o A. J. Jacobs, host of the World's Largest Family Reunion

o Donny Osmond, one of the biggest names in entertainment

· The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is accepting applications for their Young Professional Scholarship 2015. The deadline is 23 November 2014. To obtain a copy of the application, contact APG Executive Director Kathleen W. Hinckley, CG, at admin@apgen.org.

· The Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy (CAFG) is now accepting applications until Friday, 5 December 2014 for a $225 scholarship to the fourth Annual Forensic Genealogy Institute to be held 26-28 March 2015 in Dallas, Texas. Those wanting to apply for the scholarship but who have not yet registered for FGI can do so online at https://fgi2015.eventbrite.com before submitting their application.

· The Federation of Genealogical Societies and the Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society announced the FGS 2017 National Conference to be held 30 August - 2 September 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

· The Guild of One-Name Studies has announced the addition of several new services.

• MyHeritage has made several announcements:

o Millions of new record collections have been added to their offering and their Smart Matches facility makes finding matches to your family tree very simple.

o An enhanced family tree editor has been implemented that improves the process of adding people to your family tree, adding photos and videos, working with Smart Matches, and navigating the site.

o MyHeritage has announced an important new collaboration and product integration between MyHeritage and 23andMe, the DNA testing firm. This new agreement joins a previously announced collaboration between the company and Family Tree DNA.

o MyHeritage and EBSCO have partnered to launch an institutional version of its service, the MyHeritage Library Edition^TM. This partnership brings MyHeritage to libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

o FamilySearch has announced that the MyHeritage Library Edition^TM is now available for free at every FamilySearch Family History Center worldwide and at the Family History Library.

· WIkiTree.com has announced an important new feature for genealogists who have taken DNA tests with 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and Family Tree DNA.

· The British Newspaper Archive has announced that it has reached the milestone of digitizing 9 million newspaper pages, with 282 British and Irish newspaper titles online. These are accessible through the company's website and through findmypast.

· Findmypast has announced a major partnership with The Wall Street Journal's WSJ+ membership program. Members of WSJ+ can claim a complementary three-month subscription to findmypast.com as one of their benefits.

· The Indiana Commission on Public Records has approved a contract with Ancestry.com to digitize more than 13 million birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage records.

· Ancestry.com has just added 11 new databases to their American Indian collections, with a total of 3.2 million new records. They also have a new American Indian page from which you can search all the records.

· Ancestry.com has also launched 31 new German databases with 11.7 million records, consisting of civil registration records of births, marriages, and deaths from 1874 to 1954

· The International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE) has announced that the 2015 Excellence-in-Writing Competition is now open for entries through 15 July 2015. Information is available at http://www.isfhwe.org.

· FamilySearch and GenealogyBank announced an agreement to make over 1 billion records from historical obituary searchable online.

· Drew highlights the almost 4,000,000 indexed records that have been added by FamilySearch.

Listener email includes

· Jim discusses "the process" highlighted in one of The Guys' Down Under: Florida episodes on YouTube. He also thanks Drew for his response to a DNA question relating to a mystery in his genealogical research.

· Cheryl asks about the meaning of the letter A that appends the Social Security number on her great-grandfather's 1956 death certificate. The Guys respond that these are suffix letters used in conjunction with Medicare numbers to help designate whose Social Security record entitles a beneficiary to use the Medicare benefits. A chart is available at http://www.ncdoi.com/_Publications/Beneficiary%20Identification%20Codes_SNE1.pdf .

George continues his discussion of three more mobile genealogy apps:

· Family Tree History and Genealogy Coat of Arms of Last Names (iOS only)

• Atlas 2014 (Android only)
• National Geographic World Atlas (iOS only)

George reviews three new publications:

• The Surnames of Wales, Updated & Expanded by John and Sheila Rowlands. Published by Genealogical Publishing Company.
• North Carolina Genealogy Research , by Michael A. Ports. This is a new Genealogy At A Glance reference sheet published by Genealogical Publishing Company.
• A Weekend of Genealogy: Things to Know and Do Online and Offline by Margaret M. McMahon, Ph.D.

Drew discusses the RootsWeb Surname List at http://rsl.rootsweb.ancestry.com and why it is important to your research.

Drew shares an important Evernote tip.

George reports that the Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) was given an award by the Tampa Preservation, Inc., in recognition of its project collaborating with the University of South Florida to digitize, index, and make available for free online immigration records in Hillsborough County, Florida, dating from the 1890s and early 1900s.

The news includes:

· ICAPGen Conference will be held on Saturday, 1 November 2014, on the Brigham Young University campus in Salt Lake City, Utah. Details and the link to the conference registration can be found at www.icapgen.org.

· MyHeritage and EBSCO have partnered to bring the service MyHeritage Library Edition to libraries and educational institutions.

· The 35th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Conference will be held on 6-10 July 2015 in Jerusalem. Registration is now open for persons living outside of Israel; Israeli residents' registration will be announced. The conference will take place in cooperation with MyHeritage.

· RootsMagic has announced a free update for existing Charting Companion 5 owners. RootsMagic has also added direct import support for The Master Genealogist (TMG) software users.

· The State of Tennessee has announced its partnership with Ancestry.com and will become the first state to offer access to Ancestry.com in every K-12 classroom throughout the state.

· The Board for Certification of Genealogists welcomes its new president, Jeanne Larzalere Bloom, and two new board members.

· FamilySearch and GenealogyBank have announced an agreement to make over 1 billion records from historical newspapers searchable online. Volunteer indexers are needed, and more information is available at http://familysearch.org/indexing.

· FamilySearch and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania announced a joint initiative to digitally preserved select collections of the historical society's holdings.

· FamilySearch has announced a new facility for its Family Tree to upload audio files. They also announced the availability of two mobile apps.

· The New England Historic Genealogical Society will host an exclusive evening on 13 November 2014 to honor critically acclaimed actress Dame Angela Lansbury at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston. Details are available at http://www.americanancestors.org/Lansbury/.

George begins a new series about available cell phone apps for the iOS and Android operating systems. He discusses the following:

• FamilySearch Tree (available for both platforms)
• FamilySearch Memories (available only for iOS)
• Pic Scanner (available only for iOS)
• Billion Graves Camera (available only for iOS)

Drew reviews two new publications:

• Guide to DNA Testing by Richard Hill
• The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally

Listener email includes:

· Gus asks what software The Guys are using on their Macs to run Windows programs.

· Jane asks about the availability of any free American newspaper websites that she could browse, particularly for New Jersey.

· Julie asks for recommendations for learning more about genealogy and becoming a professional genealogist.

· Emily discusses finding some shocking information about a grandfather, and asks advice for combating genealogy burnout and about what information is and is not appropriate to share.

The news includes:

· The Association of Professional Genealogists announced a Young Professional Discount for its 2015 Professional Management Conference.

· Geni.com, a division of MyHeritage, announced that it now supports multilingual profiles.

· RootsMagic announced that it now has direct file import support for the soon-to-be-discontinued program The Master Genealogist.

· Registration is now open for the fourth annual Forensic Genealogy Institute (FGI) at www.forensicgenealogists.org/institute. FGI will be held on 26-28 March 2015 in Dallas, Texas.

· The Virtual Institute of Genealogical Research will be presenting year-round educational genealogical courses. For more information, visit www.vigrgenealogy.com.

· Findmypast has begun a new weekly records release program called Findmypast Fridays. The first release began on 19 September 2014 with many Irish county records. They've also released 4 million Yorkshire records online.

The Guys review a number of new publications:

• Getting the Most Out of RootsMagic Version 6 by Bruce Buzbee
• Tracing Derry/Londonderry Roots by Brian Mitchell
• Searching for Your Ancestors in Historic Newspapers by Claudia C. Breland
• The Parrett Migration by Dawn Parrett Thurston
• Maryland Genealogy Research (a Genealogy at a Glance research guide) by Michael A. Ports

· Two new laminated QuickSheet guides by Elizabeth Shown Mills:

o Your Stripped-Bare Guide to Historical ‘Proof’

o Your Stripped-Bare Guide to Citing Sources

Listener email includes:

· Timo shares information about the German Church Book Portal (Archion), currently in beta test mode, at http://www.dergenealoge.de/archion-einblick-in-die-testphase.

· Timo also shares information about the Verein für Computergenealogie (Computer Genealogy Society of Germany), which is the largest genealogical society in Germany, which hosts a large free online database with approximately 35,000,000 free records available. The website at http://www.genealogy.net will redirect you to http://www.genealogy.net.

· Tom asked a question about interpreting the results from his mother's AncestryDNA test, specifically about the origins of her great grand parents and their ancestors.

· Terri and her niece are attempting to interpret their DNA test results to figure out if they are actually half-sisters.

· Matt writes about a project involving the scanning of old glass negatives of the Fort Madison State Penitentiary in Iowa. There are many inmate photographs, and paperwork associated with the prisoners was also found. That information is being matched being matched to the photographs. The project website is IncarceratedinIowa at http://www.incarceratediniowa.com, and Matt’s blog postings are accessible at http://matthewkmiller.blogspot.com.

· Dawn discusses her genealogical research, and in particular discusses seeking information about her grandfather. No one wants to talk about him and there is some speculation about whether he was on trial in the 1930s for homosexuality or pedophilia. She asks for research guidance, and whether librarians would be reluctant to help her.

The Genealogy Guys are celebrating their 9th podcast anniversary. We began on 5 September 2005 and are still going strong!

The news includes:

· MyHeritage Founder and CEO, Gilad Japhet, has been featured in the news for his work in identifying heirs to stolen artwork and property seized by the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s. See the video (with English sub-titles) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvPjrpse92o.

· Findmypast has launched the “Hall of Heroes” at its website to celebrate the heroes in everyone’s family.

· Findmypast has also launched over 240,000 UK new parish records.

· The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) honored six of its members for their achievements and services. They also named Eva Goodwin as the winner of the APG Young Professional Scholarship.

· RootsTech and the Federation of Genealogical Societies have opened registration for their combined conference in Salt Lake City in February 2015. (See https://registration.rootstech.org/2015/portal/newreg.ww and https://www.fgsconference.org.

· Drew shares the latest release of records by FamilySearch.

· Drew’s research for surviving family members of the boys who died at the Dozier School for Boys inspired a listener to send a link to the Knoxville News Sentinel about comparable abuses at the Okeechobee School for Boys.

· RootsMagic has announced the availability of MacBridge software that will run RootsMagic on the Mac.

Drew discusses an exciting link with a cousin using DNA that has revealed marriage records of Irish ancestors in England in 1861.

Listener email includes:

· One listener is seeking more information about a Civil War ancestor from Ohio, and asks the guys for additional research suggestions.

· Julie had a poor experience with a researcher in the UK and asks for tips on handling this type of problem.

The news includes:

· Whollly Genes has announced the discontinuation of The Master Genealogist (TMG) genealogy database program.

· RootsMagic’s Weekly Tips are on their blog and are available on Facebook if you Like and Follow their page there.

· The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) has announced that registration for its 2015 APG Professional Management conference is now open. It will be held on 8-9 January 2015 at the Hilton Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.

· Genealogical Publishing Company has just published a new laminated "Genealogy at a glance" sheet titled Scots-Irish Genealogy Research by Brian Mitchell.

· The Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO) has announced that it is ready to begin the technical process of developing standards for genealogy.

· The British Newspaper Archive has announced the beginning of digitization of eight new titles. There are more than 8 million newspaper pages from 1710-1954 online at their site, and they estimate that by 2021 there will be up to 40 million pages from historical newspapers across the UK and Ireland.

· The National Archives (TNA) in the UK is implementing its new online catalog, Discovery, which will contain information about all the records held at TNA, records held in other archives, data from the National Register of Archives, ARCHON, Access to Archives (A2A), and the Manorial Documents Register (MDR). They are working to deliver a revised, updated, and online MDR on a county by county basis, in the Essex section is now complete.

· Drew highlights the new collections for FamilySearch from 25 July 2014 and 15 August 2014

Listener email includes:

· Jenny asks whether there is any point in having siblings take an autosomal DNA test.

· Timothy asks about birth date discrepancies between an SS-5 and the SSDI.

· Kelly wants to know what The Guys’ top 10 list of genealogy books for the beginner or intermediate genealogist might be.

· Virginia asks if there is an easy way to play the downloaded podcast episodes in chronological sequence.

· Mac asks about obtaining permission for screenshots for inclusion in books, and George shares insights from his experiences.

· Jim is looking at the 1910 U.S. federal census for his father and cannot find him with his parents and siblings. He may have run away from home but Jim has questions. He also asked about Enumeration Districts and how to learn more information about them.

· Eric is looking for information about his paternal line, which came from the Azores. The surname was Gomes, but has been misspelled as Gomez. He shares information about his research and how he got around a set of problems.

Drew shares his excitement at connecting via a DNA match with a distant cousin who shared with him the places of origin of his Irish Bonnon and Hyland ancestors and the fact that they were married in West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England.

The news includes:

• The new season of Who You Think You Are? begins on 23 July on the TLC Network.
• Ancestry.com has recovered from the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on 16 June 2014, and Scott Sorensen, Chief Technology Officer, assures the public that no data was compromised.
• MyHeritage has made all of its World War I military records free to search through the end of July. They also will present their first interactive webinar highlighting their newly updated mobile app on Wednesday, 23 July 2014.
• RootsMagic has introduced its new Weekly Tips on their blog and, you can also see these by Liking RootsMagic on Facebook and Following them there.
• The British Newspaper Archive has recently added 240,000 new digitized newspaper pages to their subscription service.
• Blaine Bettinger has started a new website called "How-To DNA" at http://www.howtodna.com. The site will include short instructional videos for beginners as well as presentations and webcasts for the advanced genealogists, all created and produced by DNA experts.
• WikiTree has announced the DNA Ancestor Confirmation Aid, a tool to help genealogists confirm their ancestry.
• Findmypast.co.uk announced that it has bought Origins.net, the vast online subscription service with more than 156 million British, Scottish, and Irish records.
• Findmypast.co.uk announced that it has acquired Mocavo, the genealogy-focused Internet search engine.
• Drew highlights the new and updated collections from FamilySearch that have been added in the last month.
• The Georgia Archives, located in Morrow, Georgia, south of Atlanta, has announced that it has returned to a five-day operating week, Tuesday through Saturday.
• The South Carolina State Library is offering Digitization in a Box, a complete digitization solution, to the state's libraries to put their historic photos and documents online.
• The Library of Congress has collected more than 4,000 family records forms and registers. These are now being made available for free download, printing, and use at http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=+family+records+and+registers.
• The National Archives (TNA) in the UK has announced the release of digitized images for the following collections: Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force service records, 1899-1939; Royal Air Force combat reports, 1939-1945; Royal Air Force officers' service records, 1918-1919; Household Cavalry service records, 1799-1920.
• It has been announced that funding in the amount of £2.2 million is to be given to Welsh museums, libraries, and archives. Part of these funds will be used for archives to open up their collections and resources to the community.
• Ancestry.com and ProQuest have announced an expanded distribution agreement to deliver enhanced online solutions to and through libraries, including Ancestry Library Edition and HeritageQuest Online.
• The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), announced that William (Bill) Forsyth of ProQuest is the recipient of the 2014 Genealogical Publishing Company award.
• Kirkus Reviews has named Out of Style: A Modern Perspective of How, Why and When Vintage Fashions Evolved, by Betty Kreisel Shubert as “One of the Best Books of 2013.”
• Gavin Laboski has shared news of a new iPad app called Timeline Builder, available at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timeline-builder-create-design/id733989611?mt=8.

The Guys review two books of interest to genealogists:

• Drew discusses Mind Maps for Genealogy: Enhanced Research Planning, Correlation, and Analysis, by Ron Arons.
• George discusses The Family Tree Historical Maps Book: A State-by-State Atlas of U.S. History, 1790 – 1900, by Allison Dolan and the Editors of Family Tree Magazine.

Listener email includes:

• Carole asks for advice about how to cite information about a child that only lived a few days and for whom there is neither a birth nor death certificate. Using the 1900 and 1910 censuses, she may be able to infer the child’s birth, and The Guys provide some suggestions.
• Jenny wants to know how far out The Guys study and record collateral lines.

Drew shares his last 2 interviews from the recent SCGS Genealogy Jamboree:

• Cyndi Ingle, noted genealogy speaker and writer, and the person behind Cyndi's List
• Katherine Hope Borges, DNA expert and Director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG)

Drew shares 3 more interviews from the recent SCGS Genealogy Jamboree:

• Denise Levenick, heirloom preservation expert and blogger at The Family Curator
• Daniel Horowitz, Chief Genealogist at MyHeritage
• Paul Woodbury, winner of the 2014 Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant

In addition to the latest news, Drew and George share interviews from the recent Southern California Genealogical Society's annual Genealogy Jamboree, with guests:

• Angela Walton-Raji, expert on African-American and Native American genealogical research, and host of the African Roots Podcast
• CeCe Moore, genealogical DNA expert and blogger at Your Genetic Genealogist

The news includes:

• RootsMagic has released a new video on their YouTube channel titled "Using GenSmarts with RootsMagic for Research Help".
• FamilySearch has released a number of important items:
  • "Norway Celebrates Its 200^th Anniversary"
  • U.S. Civil War Era Records
  • "15-Year-Old Organizes Unique Genealogy Event for Eagle Scout Project"
  • Drew discusses the highlights of the most recent FamilySearch collection additions and updates
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced several important events in 2015 and 2016:
  • FGS will partner with RootsTech for a joint genealogy conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 11-14 February 2015.
  • An Alaskan Cruise is planned for the Fall of 2015.
  • The 2015 New York Regional Conference returns to Syracuse on 17-19 September 2015, and FGS will help host the conference as a regional convention.
  • The FGS 2016 Conference will be held 31 August – 3 September 2016 in Springfield, Illinois.
• There are now over 8 million newspaper pages online at The British Newspaper Archive
• Findmypast.co.uk has added Devon parish records spanning 1538 to 1915.
• Unlock the Past Crusies has announced a genealogy cruise to the Baltic from 11 July 2015 to 25 July 2015.

Listener email includes:

• Jim asks whether The Guys’ “Down Under: Florida” videos are still available online. The episode about “The Zacchini Family” is available on YouTube.com. The other two, “The Miltons” and “The Ashleys”, are no longer online, but The Guys will see if those can also be added to YouTube.
• Jim also poses a somewhat complex scenario and asks Drew whether DNA could help unravel a mystery.
• A listener shares another Boddy for inclusion in Drew's Boddie One-Name Study.

Drew shares interviews he recorded at the Ohio Genealogical Society Conference with two great genealogists:

• J. H. "Jay" Fonkert, CG, from Minnesota
• Michael D. Lacopo from Indiana, blogger at Hoosier Daddy

Drew continues to share interviews from the recent Ohio Genealogical Society annual conference, including:

• Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist
• Melissa Tennant, Assistant Manager of The Genealogy Center at the Allen County [Indiana] Public Library
• Dr. Deborah Abbott
• Tim Pinnick
• J. Mark Lowe

The Guys begin with a recap of the Ohio Genealogical Society's 2014 conference in Sandusky, Ohio. The conference was a great success and kudos to the society and the organizers. The Guys will be at the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree on June 6-8, 2014.

The news includes:

• Randy Riley has been selected as the next State Librarian of Michigan.
• MyHeritage announces that it has reached a milestone, surpassing 5 billion historical records.
• FamilySearch has added more than 5.4 million images to collections from England, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Spain, and the United States.
• FamilySearch also issued a document titled “Six Tips to Find Your Mexican Family History.”
• Ancestry.com announced the release of 11.5 million new records for Quakers living in the United States and worldwide from the late 1600s to the late 1900s. They estimate that it now has more than 75% of all the American Quaker records in existence.
• The Suzanne Winsor Memorial Student Genealogy Grant Committee has announced that Paul Woodbury will receive $500 from the Freeman Memorial Grant program and a three-day registration to the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies invites bloggers, societies, writers, and editors to participate in their 2014 conference by becoming FGS 2014 Ambassadors. Visit https://www.fgsconference.org/media/ambassadors/ for more information and to register.

Listener email includes:

• One listener made a suggestion for the person whose elderly mother recently discovered that her DNA didn't match her lifelong presumptions about her father. The suggestion was a New York newspaper resource called Old Fulton New York Postcards at http://www.fultonhistory.com
• Jim wrote to praise the podcast of 15 July 2007 in which George detailed his research steps to locate Brisco Holder, and then to place a marker on his grave.
• Drew responded to two emails concerning DNA: one from Jennifer about GedMatch.com and one from Chad concerning DNA Tribes. He suggests that they and anyone else interested in more information about DNA visit the website of the international Society of Genetic Genealogy at http://www.isogg.org/
• Matt wrote about the Miller surname and y-DNA test results.
• Lee wrote with a suggestion for Sue in Tasmania who was searching for a diary that had been sold: the General Society of the War of 1812 at http://societyofthewarof1812.org/
• Timothy reports on a success story that employs the use of “sideways genealogy” to locate information.

The Guys are pleased to present the first two of a number of interviews recorded at the OGS 2014 Conference:

• Craig Roberts Scott, CG^SM
• Paula Stuart-Warren, CG^SM

The Genealogy Guys would like to welcome its new sponsor, MyHeritage.com!

Genealogical Publishing Company has released a new Genealogy at a Glance (GAAG) laminated resource document written by George G. Morgan titled FamilySearch.org Research. This joins George’s recent Ancestry.com Research (GAAG) and 23 other titles in the series. They are available from the publisher and at Amazon.com.

Drew reports on the status of the Dozier School project which is researching the remains of students who died and were buried at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, during the 20th century.

The genealogy news includes:

• FamilySearch has added more than 1.2 million images of Italian civil registration records.
• RootsMagic has its own YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/RootsMagicTV. They have just added a new video called “Using Charting Companion with RootsMagic
• The Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) has announced 2015 plans for two institute weeks of its popular courses.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) has announced its calls for Award Nominations, with a nomination deadline of June 15, 2014. Details can be found at http://www.fgs.org/cpage.php?pt=56awards
• Professional genealogist and house historian Marian Pierre-Louis has developed a new genealogy show in audio (podcast) format called The Genealogy Professional. The show shares the experiences of genealogy professionals in developing and running their businesses.
• Members of AARP can obtain a 30% discount on an annual subscription to the Ancestry.com World Explorer package. Please see the details and terms of the discount at http://discounts.aarp.org/offer/ancestry-com/deal/707823/uSource/MTFP
• The National Archives in the UK announced that Operation War Diary, a key project in their First World War 100 program, won a Best of the Web Award at the Museums and the Web Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
• The “Family Names of the United Kingdom Project” has completed the first phase of a project to create a database with surnames researched and explained. The project is being conducted by a team from the University of the West of England, Bristol. Details are available at http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/cahe/research/bristolcentreforlinguistics/fanuk.aspx.

Drew reviews Families of Southeastern Georgia by Jack N. Averitt. The book is a reprint of a 1964 book and is published by Genealogical Publishing Company using its Clearfield Publishing imprint.

The news includes:

• Doug asks about some available books about land records. The Guys make some suggestions, including one titled Digging for Ancestors: An In-Depth Guide to Land Records by Michelle Goodrum.
• Richard responded to Beverly’s inquiry (in episode #264) with suggestions about software to use to create a genealogy website and free hosting possibilities. Richard uses Serif’s WebPlus X7 software and uses Filezilla to upload the data. He suggests several hosting options. He included links to three of his sites: FreePages at RootsWeb at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~yehle/; Comcast at http://home.comcast.net/~ryehle/; and GoDaddy at http://yehlegenealogy.info/
• Debbie responded to our call for suggestions (in episode #264) for the researcher whose 82-year-old mother discovered through DNA testing that her legal father was not her biological father.
• Debbie also asked about the book reviewed in episode #263, Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City by Joseph Buggy, and whether it also included information about immigrants from Northern Ireland.
• Caroleen expands on The Guys’ answer in episode #260 about LDS temple work done for individuals entered into the FamilySearch Family Tree.
• Chris/Jenny responded to Sue’s question (in episode #260) about locating a diary of the ship Shannon sold to a museum in the U.S.
• Chad asks about the DNA testing he had done with DNA Tribes into his South American Ancestry and the results he received.
• Barbara suggests checking out the GenealogyInTime Magazine at www.genealogyintime.com
• Brett asks about becoming a credentialed genealogist and a professional researcher, and The Guys offer some suggestions.

The Guys will be at the Ohio Genealogical Society Conference on May 1-3, 2014, at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio.

George thanks Lora of Little Switzerland, NC, for the kind email about his article in the December-January issue of Internet Genealogy titled “ Tracing Frances Lamb Mims WIlson: A Case Study.”

The news includes:

• RootsMagic ’s newsletters include articles about: Do I Still Need a Desktop Genealogy Program?; and Importing an Ancestry[.com] Family Tree into RootsMagic.
• WIkiTree announced the Global Family Reunion on 6 June 2015, organized by A. J. Jacobs.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has launched their 2014 Webinar Series with a new webinar presented by Jen Baldwin.
• Drew shares highlights of updates of almost 19.8 million records at the FamilySearch website.
• MyHeritage announced that it has added to their site The Jewish Chronicle newspaper archive, the world’s oldest continually published Jewish newspaper which dates back to 1841, with more than 200,000 pages and millions of names.
• MyHeritage also announced a pro bono global initiative with BillionGraves to preserve every cemetery and gravestone in the world and to provide the content online, for free. Click here to view a great short video about the project.

Listener email includes:

• Brian poses an interesting and timely question about copyright on a family genealogy book published in 1993. The author is dead, so is the book still under copyright.
• Roy Hemmat of Crafted Knowledge in San Diego shared links to sites devoted specifically to immigration to the USA in the 19th century:

o http://www.ukimmigrants.org

o http://www.famineships.info

o http://www.russianimmigrants.org

o http://www.polishmigration.org

o http://www.finnishimmigrants.org

o http://www.italianimmigrants.org

o http://www.germanimmigrants1850s.com

o http://www.germanimmigrants1860s.com

o http://www.germanimmigrants1870s.com

o http://www.germanimmigrants1880s.com

o http://www.germanimmigrants1890s.com

• Beverly is considering creating a family website and is looking for suggestions regarding software and free hosting possibilities. The Guys ask listeners to share experience and ideas.
• Marcie has questions about WWI draft registration cards and the physical descriptions of registrants.
• John suggests that attendees to the 2014 Ohio Genealogical Society Conference also consider visiting the nearby Ohio Veterans Home (http://dvs.ohio.gov/VETERANS_HOMES/Sandusky_Home) and the museum (http://www.shoresandislands.com/what/12384/Ohio-Veterans-Home-Museum).
• A friend of The Guys shares a story about unexpected ethnicity as revealed by a DNA test leading to difficult family questions, and asks for suggestions for continuing his search.
• Sue in Tasmania asks for suggestions about locating a family diary sold to a U.S. museum.
• Judy wants to know why there are not more records digitized and indexed from the 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

The News includes:

• Halvor Moorshead, founder of Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy, and History Magazine, passed away on March 7, 2014.
• Moorshead Magazines has just published “Tracing Your Ancestors: Beginner’s Guide,” a new title in their Tracing Your Ancestors series. It is available in the Internet Genealogy online bookstore at http://internet-genealogy.com/Books.htm. It is available in both print and PDF format.
• MyHeritage.com ’s CEO, Gilad Japhet, undertook a personal search to identify and reunite artwork seized from Jews by the Nazis during WWII. His story is published in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/arts/design/a-reporter-in-france-helps-to-return-art-taken-by-the-nazis.html
• MyHeritage.com has added a new feature to its site that allows you to add new profiles to your tree directly from historical records.
• MyHeritage.com has added 815 million U.S. Public Records to the MyHeritage SuperSearch.
• MyHeritage.com has also partnered with BillionGraves.com in a global initiative to digitally preserve the world’s cemeteries. A new BillionGraves camera app for iPhone and iPad is available to help expedite the cemetery recording process.
• The Michigan Department of Education issued a press release announcing that the Library of Michigan is expanding its library hours to include opening from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on the second Saturday of each month.
• FamilySearch International (online at FamilySearch.org) has announced collaborations with a number of commercial genealogical companies to partner in digitizing, indexing, and making available the records images they hold in one generation.
• FamilySearch ’s catalog records have now been fully integrated into WorldCat.
• The American Society of Genealogists has announced that applications are being accepted for its annual ASG Scholar Award until September 30, 2014. Details can be found at http://fasg.org/awards/asg-scholar-award/.
• RootsMagic has released its new mobile app for the Android.
• Find A Grave , a subsidiary of Ancestry.com, has just released a new iOS mobile app for the iPhone and iPad at the Apple Store.
• The National Archives (U.K.) has spent almost 20 years digitizing the Manorial Documents Register and getting the MDR online. Melinda Haunton’s TNA blog posting of 3 February 2014, titled “To the manor born?,” at http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/manor-born/ discusses the process and the how the documents can be used.
• HistoryGeo.com is a family history software subscription service that links old maps for your genealogical research. Learn more at http://s3.amazonaws.com/hg_media/press/HistoryGeo_Release_2014_Jan_28.pdf .
• Findmypast.com.au has announced the addition of 2.5 million records for the British in India.
• Findmypast.com.au has also announced over 640,000 convict records that are sure to be of interest and help to the estimated 20% of Australians who possess convict ancestry.
• A new national database, ForgottenAshes.com, has just been established to help reunite the cremains of individuals with their families.
• The Bureau for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) has just published its new standards manual, Genealogy Standards: Fiftieth Anniversary Issue.

The Guys reviewed two new products from Genealogical Publishing Co.:

• The new Genealogy at a Glance reference titled Court Records by Wendy Bebout Elliott, PhD, FUGA.
• Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City by Joseph Buggy

Listener email includes:

• Chris recommends the film negative and slide scanner by Wolverine, model F2D20.
• Arvind Nangia writes to tell us about the Pic Scanner app for iOS devices, that can scan up to three photographs simultaneously, saves them individually, allows them to be cropped, and they can be organized into digital albums. The Guys would love to hear your feedback.
• Matt shares a tip for listener Dianne who said in December that she needed help tracking down her grandfather’s town of origin in the Alsace-Lorraine area. He suggests http://www.auswanderer-bw.de. We describe his instructions in the podcast.

Enjoy an interview conducted by Genealogy Gems podcaster Lisa Louise Cooke as she asks Drew about the Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques book and some other related genealogy topics!

Drew shares his second and final set of interviews that he conducted at RootsTech 2014, including:

• Anneliese Van Den Belt, CEO of DC Thomson Family History, whose best known genealogy-related brand is FindMyPast
• Matthew Hovorka, a young genealogist who spoke as part of the RootsTech Youth Track
• Mike Davis, CEO of StoryPress
• Kim Harrison, a Senior Institutional Account Executive for Ancestry.com, on the topic of her Educational Grants. 

Drew shares the first set of interviews that he conducted at RootsTech 2014, including:

• Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch
• Michael J. Leclerc, Chief Genealogist of Mocavo
• Ed Thompson, developer of Evidentia

SALT LAKE CITY—RootsTech, the world’s largest family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 6-8, 2014, announced today that 15 of its popular sessions will be broadcast live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend in-person worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The fourth-year conference has attracted over 10,000 registered attendees in-person, and leaders expect over 20,000 additional viewers online.

The streamed sessions include a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in mountain standard time (MST):

Thursday, February 6

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Top 10 Things I Learned About My Family from My Couch by Tammy Hepps

1 p.m. to 2 p.m., FamilySearch Family Tree: What's New and What's Next by Ron Tanner

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Intro to DNA for Genealogists by James Rader

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Genealogy in the Cloud by Randy Hoffman

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Sharing Your Family with Multimedia by Michael LeClerc

Friday, February 7

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Storytelling Super Powers: How to Come Off as Your Family's Genealogy Hero by David Adelman

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Tweets, Links, Pins, and Posts: Break Down Genealogical Brick Walls with Social Media by Lisa Alzo

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Getting the Most Out of Ancestry.comby Crista Cowen

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Finding Family and Ancestors Outside the USA with New Technologies by Daniel Horowitz

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Do It Yourself Photo Restoration by Ancestry Insider

Saturday, February 8

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Become an iPad Power User by Lisa Louise Cooke

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Information Overload: Managing Online Searches and Their Results by Josh Taylor

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., A Beginner’s Guide to Going Paperless by Randy Whited

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., How to Interview Yourself for a Personal History by Tom Taylor

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Five Ways to Do Genealogy in Your Sleep by Deborah Gamble

About RootsTech

RootsTech is a global family history event where people of all ages learn to discover and share their family stories and connections through technology. The first annual conference was held in 2011, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by leading genealogical organizations, the conference includes hands-on demonstrations and forums to provide a highly interactive environment and accelerate learning. Content is geared to young and old, beginner to advanced levels.

Ancestry needs your help!! We're looking for Ancestry enthusiasts to provide feedback on some new concepts on the ancestry.com website experience.

Member feedback has always been vital to our product development and Ancestry has recently expanded its User Research team, and we want to talk to you! Based in both Provo and San Francisco, sessions would typically last an hour either online or in person if you’re local. We are happy to get your input on existing and new experiences across both the website and mobile.  Participants will have a few different incentives to choose from, such as the latest edition of FTM for Windows or Mac! 

If you are interested in applying for participation, please drop us a line at User-Research@ancestry.com.

We have some in-person opportunities at RootsTech to kickoff this expanded initiative.

ROOTSTECH

Starting this February at RootsTech, we will be conducting sessions on Thursday (2/6) and Friday (2/7). There are two ways you could participate:

·         One of two, 90 minute focus groups from 4:30 – 6:00 PM each day, where we will look specifically at the Profile Page of people in your tree to understand both how you currently use it and what new features that you'd love to see incorporated. You will be asked to pull up interesting people in your tree and share with the Research team and the 4 or 5 other subscribers in the group.

·         A 50 minute, one-to-one interview session with a member of the Product Research team who will walk you through some new concepts and get your input. We will be conducting 7 sessions at different times during the day on Thursday and Friday. Follow the link below to select your preferred times.

To participate in either RootsTech research session type, you need an active ancestry.com account with a tree. To be considered, please fill out this survey, so that we can confirm your participation and set up scheduling.

http://ancestry.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2gGn6AJi7S0LFJj

Thank you,

Lisa R. Handalian, Senior User Researcher | Ancestry.com Product Team

The news includes:

·      RootsMagic announces that their webinars are now indexed and that their Android app is coming soon.

·      Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage have teemed up to integrate DNA tests into the MyHeritage customer base of 75M users.

·      Findmypast announces that they are making improvements to their website and will be adding records more frequently.

·      GenSoftReviews announces the Top Genealogy Software Awards for 2013.

·      AmericanAncestors.org (NEHGS) has debuted their blog, Vita Brevis, at http://vita-brevis.org.

·      FamilySearch announces their new indexing website at https://familysearch.org/indexing/.

·      Ancestry.com and FamilySearch announce an expansion of their collaborative agreement to make more than 1 billion additional records from 67 countries available on Ancestry.com.

·      Drew highlights new record additions at FamilySearch.

·      There are news reports that indicate that Pope Francis will open the Vatican’s archives covering Pious XII and his pontificate of World War II and the role he played in supporting/facilitating the Nazi regime’s activities. (See http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=20240.)

 

The Guys talk about upcoming conference appearances.

 

Listener email includes:

·      Neal shared a website called American Radio History at http://www.americanradiohistory.com with over 1M page of magazines, periodicals, yearbooks, directories and more that can provide information about ancestors in the broadcasting industry and insights into your ancestors’ entertainment.

·      Karen asks questions about Family Tree Maker 2014.

·      Noi asks questions about rescuing family photos and documents.

·      Sam ask questions concerning DNA testing advances.

·      Joshua ask questions about the FamilySearch family tree facility and whether data submitted might be used by the LDS for baptism by proxy.

 

Drew discusses the Arthur G, Dozier School for Boys and the role that the University of South Florida (and himself) are playing in researching the abuse and deaths of boys committed to the school. (See http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/students-skeletal-remains-uncovered-infamous-florida-school-boys-article-1.1448534 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_School_for_Boys.

The news includes:

·      The Genealogy Guys have been interviewed by Marian Pierre-Louis on episode 72 of her podcast, Fieldstone Common, at http://www.fieldstonecommon.com/george-morgan-drew-smith.

·      Restrictions placed on access to the Social Security Death Index.

·      Keynote speakers at RootsTech 2014.

·      News about 23andMe and its genetic genealogy testing service.

·      Matthew Batchelor is appointed as the new Chief Technology Officer at DC Thomson Family History, owner of Findmypast.com and Genes Reunited.

·      The National Archives in the UK has announced a series of six webinars, beginning in January 2014 They will be held at different hours that help assure most people all over the world can enjoy them live. The schedule and topics are available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/webinars.htm.

·      RootsMagic has released a new update to Version 6, is working on the beta test of the Android app, and has a great collection of free recorded webinars online and videos about RootsMagic.

·      FamilySearch continues to add hundreds of thousands of new records each week, and Drew summarizes some highlights from December 2013.

·      MyHeritage announces a huge initiative into the Nordic countries and the addition of millions of names and records.

·      Ancestry.com has announced the release of Family Tree Make Mac 3.

·      Betty Kreisel Shubert’s landmark book, Out-of-Style: A Modern Perspective of How, Why, and When Vintage Fashions Evolved, has been named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Books of 2013.

 

Listener email includes:

·      Russ Worthington, in his October postings in “A Worthington Weblog,” discusses how he files his digital images.

·      William asks about the proper way to record surnames that were changed due to adoption or “Americanization” by immigrant ancestors.

 

The Guys discuss how they are using technology and the hardware, software, and apps that they are using the most as of the beginning of 2014.

The news includes:

·      The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) announces the results of their elections.

·      Drew shares the latest FamilySearch collection releases at their website.

·      Aha! Seminars, Inc., reminds listeners that George and Drew are available for webinars for societies. Visit the website for presentation topics and descriptions.

·      George has a new article in the December 2013/January 2014 issue of Internet Genealogy. It is a case study, performed almost exclusively on the Internet, and includes complete source citations.

·      A television series in Ireland called Tar Abhaile is available at http://www.tg4.ie/en/player/tg4-player.html?id=2841564288001&title=Tar.

·      Drew will be an Official Blogger (Podcaster) at RootsTech 2014. Visit https://rootstech.org/ for details about the conference. (And email us with the names of people you want Drew to interview!)

 

Book reviews include:

·      Hiding the Past, a genealogical mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

·      International Vital Records Handbook, 6^th edition, by Thomas Jay Kemp

 

Listener email includes:

·      Gus has prepared a Podcast Kit for those who want to start their own podcast. You can request a copy from him at gusmarsh1774@gmail.com.

·      Larry asks about the use of information found in other people’s online family trees.

·      Matt asks for suggestions about how to determine who is buried in each plot of his family plot where the graves are currently unmarked.

·      Dianne asks for suggestions concerning naturalization records and tracing her grandfather’s town of origin in Alsace-Lorraine.

The Guys have several announcements:

• Genealogical Publishing Company has just published a new Genealogy at a Glance laminated reference guide. This one is titled “Ancestry.com Research” and is written by George G. Morgan. You can order it from GPC or at the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website.

• All of George and Drew’s publications can be ordered at the Aha! Seminars, Inc., website, and the links there take you to the best pricing available.

• The company that purchased Ancestry Publishing’s business several years ago has published the second edition of The Official Guide to Ancestry.com in Kindle format and Nook format. That book was published in 2008 and is extremely outdated. In addition, the current publisher has not paid any royalties to this author for more than two years. Therefore, George strongly recommends that you do not purchase either ebook version of this book.

• Drew will be an Official Blogger at RootsTech 2014.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com announced the Fold3 Honor Wall at Fold3.com. They also announced the addition of man new record additions to the Ancestry.com site.

• DC Thomson, owner of findmypast.com and Genes Reunited, and formerly known as brightsolid online publishing, has announced a deal with FamilySearch.org to make billions of records available online.

• MyHeritage has announced a strategic partnership with FamilySearch.org to make billions of records available online.

• Drew covers major additions from mid-October to mid-November by FamilySearch.org to its collections of records available online.

• MyHeritage announced a partnership with BillionGraves to add 5.5 million gravestone records and with Tributes.com to add 3.5 million obituaries to their site.

• MyHeritage announced an enhancement to their site that allows users to extract information form historical records into multiple profiles on your family tree.

Listener email includes:

• Lee asks about Family Tree Maker 2014. He also provides information about the Ohio Genealogical Society’s important library holdings.

• Matt Miller discusses genealogical proof in the attempt to demolish a brick wall in his blog at http://matthewkmiller.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-constitutes-proof.html.

• Maria Northcote, producer of the Genies Down Under podcast in Australia, wrote to thank us for our review of Betty Kreisel Shubert's book, Out of Style, in our March 2013 podcast.

• The Guys shared information from an article from the New York Public Library about “Why Your Family Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island (and One That Was).”

• Ben wrote about name changes at Ellis Island as well.

• Mike asked if there is an equivalent of the SSDI in other countries, specifically Italy.

• Mac writes that she believes that the suggestion that silhouettes and clip art in family trees was made by genealogist Lisa Louise Cooke in her Genealogy Gems podcasts.

The Guys reviewed a number of books in this episode:

• Applications for Enrollment of Chickasaw Newborn Act of 1905, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, transcribed by Jeff Bowen. Printed for Clearfield Company by Genealogical Publishing Company.

• Without Indentures: Index to White Slave Children in Colonial Court Records [Maryland and Virginia], by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. Published by Genealogical Publishing Company.

• Sustainable Genealogy: Separating Fact from Fiction in Family Legends, by Richard Hite. Published by Genealogical Publishing Company.

• 19th Century Photos Kwik Guide: A Step-by-Step Guide to Identifying and Dating Cartes de Visite and Cabinet Cards, by Gary W. Clark. Published by PhotoTree.com.

Note: It appears that there are problems with the audio quality in portions of this episode, causing one of the two stereo tracks to drop out at random times.  We apologize for this.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com has acquired Find A Grave.
• Ancestry.com and FamilySearch have formed an agreement to make a billion global records available online.
• RootsMagic has added more tutorial videos at RootsMagic TV
• Drew shares highlights from the last month's record additions at FamilySearch.
• FamilySearch announced that it has received its one millionth photo on the new Family Tree Photo Preservation Service.
• Findmypast.com has several announcements: Findmypast.com.au has added a further 2.5 million Irish Petty Court records to its site. Findmypast.com has launched its Irish Newspaper Collection, making almost 2 million historical Irish newspaper articles available for searching. The company's survey reveals America’s most popular celebrity families.
• Ancestry.com makes scientific breakthroughs in West African ethnicity that can help researchers determine the geographical origin of their ancestors.
• The Society for One-Place Studies has been launched to help individuals and societies advance their work on specific geographical locations.
• DNA testing was sought after two headstones were found for the same woman in a Kentucky cemetery.

Listener email includes:

• Jenny asks about English and Welsh BMD digitization; joining a local genealogical society; the Clooz software program; and the sync feature on Ancestry.com family trees and Family Tree Maker software.
• Ed talks about downloading our podcast and about his experiences with RootsMagic software.
• Cris discusses the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), also known as the Social Security Death Master File.
• Richard discusses his use of Legacy Family Tree software, Ancestry.com family trees, and publishing his tree on RootsWeb.com.
• Cheryl raises the topic of how to name and label photographs, and Drew discusses metadata.
• Marina has a suggestion for Noi about place names in Germany, and suggests the book series Map Guide to German Parish Registers.

The news includes:

• The Guys’ new book, Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques, is now available in softcover and Kindle formats.
• George received an award on 23 August 2013 from the Association of Professional Genealogists, the 2013 Excellence in Writing Award, for his articles in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly (APGQ).
• The Genealogy Guys Podcast has been named by Family Tree Magazine as one of the 101 Best Web Sites of 2013.
• RootsMagic announced new tutorial videos at RootsMagicTV on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/RootsMagicTV.
• MyHeritage has announced a new global photo archive at http://www.myheritage.com/photos.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has released a new mobile app for year-round information and annual conferences. The iOS version for iPad and iPhone is available at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fgs-app/id689433117?ls=1&mt=8 and the Android version is available at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fgs.fgsapp.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies and FamilySearch have announced that they will be holding a joint conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 12-14 February 2015. The conference will include RootsTech 2015 and the FGS 2015 Conference, with separate registrations.
• Ancestry.co.uk has added nearly 900,000 digitized and indexed records of the Clandestine Marriage and Baptism Registers 1667-1754. These include Fleet Prison, King’s Bench Prison, The Mint, May Fair Chapel, and others.
• Ancestry.ca has added the newly released 1921 Census of Canada in browsable format, with indexing promised soon.
• Ancestry.com has announced the release of Family Tree Maker 2014 for PC. You can purchase it at a 30% discount through 9 September 2013. At http://www.ancestry.com/cs/apps/products.
• Wills of English World War I soldiers have been indexed and are available online at https://www.gov.uk/probate-search.
• FamilySearch has released another huge set of records at its website, and Drew mentions highlighted collections.
• Findmypast.com has recently added 200 volumes of digital books about Canada to its website. Information dates back to the 1600s in more than 71,000 pages.

Listener email includes:

• Jenny discusses, English and Welsh BMDs, joining a local genealogical society, Clooz software, and using Family Tree Maker to sync with the online family tree she has uploaded to Ancestry.com.
• Michelle updates us on her success in obtaining NARA Railroad Retirement files from Atlanta.
• Katie discusses access to cemeteries, and provides an excellent example of the Congressional Cemetery (not associated with the U.S. federal government) and its excellent preservation and information access. Visit their site at http://www.congressionalcemetery.org.
• Mac reminds us that this is the time of year, with back-to-school deals at office supply stores, to purchase your genealogical office supplies at sale prices.
• Jenny wonders why people are adding icons and decorative graphics – non-photos – to their family trees at Ancestry.com. This causes unnecessary “hints” to be generated and wastes space on Ancestry.com’s servers.
• Mike asks about DNA testing, and asks what are the best types of tests to have performed.
• Timothy asked for an update on the project concerning the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Drew discusses the funding of the project by the State of Florida, the start of the exhumations of remains, and more details.

While at the FGS Conference, George interviewed Rick Kincaid, Project Manager for Operation Ancestor Search, and Kim Harrison of Ancestry.com. They discuss this collaboration between the Sons of the American Revolution and Ancestry.com, involving the Veterans Hospitals in the U.S. You can reach Rick Kincaid at rkincaid@sar.org or (502) 588-6147 to learn more and to get involved.

The news includes:

• Information about the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference and the Illinois State Genealogical Society Fall Conference.
• WikiTree has added a DNA feature.
• Findmypast.com.au has released new content for the Royal Naval Division service records (1914-1920).
• Findmypast.com has announced that it will be adding the Periodical Source Index (PERSI) to its site in coming months.
• Findmypast.com.au has secured the rights to publish all of the registered wills from New South Wales from 1800 to 1952.
• Drew provides a recap of highlights in the newly released images at FamilySearch.
• RootsMagic has released an update to RootsMagic 6 that introduces Problem Alerts.
• RootsMagic has a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/RootsMagicTV at which you will find shorter training videos. These supplement the Webinars/Online Classes at their website under the Learn tab.
• Megan Smolenyak has announced that one of The Guys' Down Under: Florida video episodes, about the Flying Zacchinis, has been re-released and is available at http://megansmolenyak.posthaven.com/584139.
• Origins.net has released many more older records at its website.
• Saving Memories Forever has announced a strategic partnership with the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO).

The mail includes:

• Susan asks if The Guys' new book, Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques, will be available in digital form. It is now posted at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in electronic formats and those will be available when it is released in September. Preordering is already available.
• Melody asks for guidance on how to download the podcast from our website.
• Stephanie has a question about Polish Armed Forces records for those persons who escaped Poland after Hitler's invasion in 1939 and who fought with the Allies. George cites a good Wikipedia article titled "Polish Armed Forces in the West" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_armed_forces_in_the_west.
• Lisa asked about the Facebook group that deals with organization. Drew points her to "The Organized Genealogist" group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/organizedgenealogist/.
• Connie asks about SSDI records at Ancestry.com that add place of death from the "Last Benefits" field of the online records.
• Elaine asks questions about how and where we store our digital photos and about how we share those photos with others.
• Elizabeth LaPointe has developed an e-booklet titled The 1921 Canada Census User Guide that will be available when that census is publicly released. Its price is $5.95 CDN and copies can be reserved by sending an email to GenealogyCanada@aol.com and including "1921 Census" in the subject heading.
• Jenny has a question about linking Family Tree Maker trees at Ancestry.com.
• Mary asks about the expression "first generation American."
• Noi has some questions about locating a German place name for Noi's great-great-grandfather.
• Steve asks about how to locate information about his grandfather who he thinks was a census enumerator in Chicago for the 1940 U.S. federal census.

Drew also discusses the Family History Information Standards Organisation.

The news includes:

• Drew has been appointed as Chair of the Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO).
• RootsMagic is now Share+ Certified by FamilySearch.
• Early Bird Registration for the 2013 Federation of Genealogical Societies' Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 21-24, 2013, ends on July 1st.
• Canada's Heritage Minister asks the Library and Archives Canada to reconsider restoration of funding to help museums preserve local history.
• The 1921 Census of Canada will be made available to researchers in the near future.
• A new season of Who Do You Think You Are? will begin on TLC (The Learning Channel) on July 23, 2013.
• The Digital Public Library of America has been launched.
• findmypast.com provides free access to its Irish Records Collection from June 27-30, 2013.
• findmypast.com has updated its Irish Petty Session Court Registers with 2.5 million new records.
• Drew tells listeners about DNA research that has identified the potato blight responsible for the Irish Potato Famine, using leaves from an herbarium.
• findmypast.com added 3 million baptism, marriage, and burial records from Westminster in London.
• findmypast.com has added 23 million records and 121 million newspaper pages from around the world.
• Drew shares information about major collections added to FamilySearch, including 5.7 million images to the New Massachusetts Land Records Collection (1620-1986).
• Moorshead Magazines has announced the publication of a new title, Tracing Your Colonial American Ancestors.
• Geni.com continues to enhance its offering with the addition of Record Matching and Smart Matching tools.
• Synium Software has released MacFamilyTree 7 and MobileFamilyTree 7, with special pricing for new and existing users through July 31, 2013.

Drew reminds listeners how to subscribe to the podcasts.

Listener email includes:

• Richard provides a suggestion for how to learn to pronounce names.

George discusses meeting someone on Facebook who was able to photograph wills in the Maryland Archives of his fifth- and sixth-great grandfathers in his Alexander line.

Drew shares his three remaining interviews from RootsTech 2013:

• Elissa Scalise Powell, President of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, discusses BCG's upcoming 50th anniversary celebration and what genealogists might want to know about becoming certified.
• Janet Hovorka, The Chart Chick, tells Drew all about her newest project, Zap the Grandma Gap, a book, workbook, and website that helps connect children and their families to fun genealogy activities.
• David Pogue, a well-known technology writer and presenter, provides an entertaining interview that ranges from discussing apps to playing a virtual ocarina. But even Drew can surprise David with an app he's never heard of!

Drew shares three more interviews from RootsTech 2013:

• Alec Tritton and Else Churchill describe an upcoming genealogy conference in the UK: Exodus: Movement of the People.
• Lisa Louise Cooke, host of The Genealogy Gems Podcast, talks about using iPads and other tablets for genealogy, which she covers in detail in her latest book Turn Your iPad into a Genealogy Powerhouse.
• Syd Lieberman, a renowned storyteller and one of the keynote speakers for RootsTech 2013, shares his ideas about the importance of stories.

The Genealogy Guys celebrate their 250th episode!

They discuss a wide variety of subjects, including:

• George's organizing projects to date this year
• The Guys' forthcoming book, Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques, to be published in September 2013. The book is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. 
• Upcoming conferences at which The Guys will be speaking this year.
• Drew is providing research assistance on a project concerning the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
• Drew is working on the Boddie/Bodie surname with the Guild of One-Name-Studies.
• He also discusses FHISO, the Family History Information Standards Organisation. 

The Guys enthusiastically thank their sponsors and the thousands of listeners around the globe for their dedication and support over all the episodes.

George is out of town speaking for the North Carolina Genealogical Society, so Drew hosts this episode, beginning with the following news items:

• British Origins adds South London burials to its London collection.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announces a new partnership with its German equivalent, the German Association of Genealogical Associations (DAGV).
• FamilySearch indexing volunteers reach the 1 billion record milestone.
• Houstory thanks The Genealogy Guys for their previous coverage of their Heirloom Registry product.
• Ancestry.co.uk adds Wiltshire Church Records and Wiltshire Quaker Birth & Death records to its collection.
• AncestryDNA makes it easier to communicate with people who match, improves its website for mobile users, and provides the ability to download raw DNA data.
• Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com, makes several important announcements at RootsTech 2013, including the new partnership with FamilySearch to digitize 140 million pages of U.S. probate records; spending $100 million to digitize, index, and put online new content; the availability of AncestryDNA for $99 for everyone (not just Ancestry subscribers); the increase in size of the AncestryDNA database; the update to the Ancestry.com iOS app; and the significant percentage of younger users coming into Ancestry.com using mobile devices.
• FamilySearch adds significant new collections for such areas as Georgia and Washington county marriages; civil records for Bologna, Italy; and court records for Trumbull County, Ohio

Drew shares 3 interviews from RootsTech 2013, including:

• Judy G. Russell, who blogs at The Legal Genealogist
• Chris van der Kuyl, CEO of brightsolid (provider of FindMyPast.com)
• David Adelman, CEO of ReelGenie

The news includes:

• The Family History Library's Saturday hours will change on April 13, 2013, to 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
• FamilySearch announces the additions of new collections, including the addition of indexing projects in process or completed.
• Findmypast.com has released 2.5 million UK criminal records covering the period 1770 to 1934.
• Ancestry.com announces that, for a limited time, users can buy Family Tree Maker 2012 and receive Photo Explosion Album, a photo editing software package for free.
• An international genealogy conference in the UK, Exodus: Movement of the People- The story of migration to, from, and within the British Isles - will be held September 6-8, 2013, at the Hinckley Island Hotel in Hinckley, Leistershire, UK. For more information, visit http://www.exodus2013.co.uk.

George provides reviews of some excellent materials:

• How to Archive Family Keepsakes by Denise May Levenick
• The Heirloom Registry, by Houstory Publishing (See more details at http://www.heirloomregistry.com.)
• A Week of Genealogy: Things to Know and Do Online and Offline by Dr. Margaret M. McMahon, Ph.D.
• Out-of-Style by Betty Kreisel Shubert

Listener email includes:

• Stan provides an excellent website called FileRight for Genealogy and Military Records, which includes many great military and naturalization links, at http://www.fileright.com/naturalization-family-roots-military-records.html.
• Beverly wanted to know why she can't locate 1820 U.S. federal census records for Montgomery County, NC.
• Tom asks about the future of DNA testing.

Drew talks about the resources he is using in two research projects in which he is participating.

Drew, an official RootsTech 2013 blogger, reminds listeners that Early Bird Registration for RootsTech 2013 ends on February 15th. Drew invites our listeners to email us at genealogyguys@gmail.com with suggestions for interviews while he's at RootsTech 2013.

Other news includes:

• RootsMagic announces a free viewer app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
• BillionGraves has been acquired by Otter Creek Holdings.
• Findmypast.com adds 21 million new Irish birth, marriage, and death records.
• The "Find My Past" TV show from the UK, seasons 1 and 2, is available for viewing online at http://www.findmypast.com/articles/find-my-past-tv/series-two.
• Ancestry.com has updated the 1850 and 1940 U.S. federal censuses online.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has launched a new blog for the War of 1812 fundraising at http://www.preservethepensions.org/blog/.
• MyHeritage has launched a special campaign offering deep discounts on DNA tests through Family Tree DNA. They also have released a new version of the free MyHeritage app that allows you to "edit on the go."
• The Suzanne Winsor Freeman Grant Committee has announced that applications are being accepted for the 2013 student grant. Contact Denise Levenick at swfgrant@gmail.com for more information.
• Saving Memories Forever announces the first community outreach by starting a fundraising campaign on February 11, 2013, on behalf of the American Widows Project.
• OCLC and FamilySearch have announced a combination of resources. FamilySearch's catalog will be incorporated into OCLC's WorldCat and WorldCat will be linked into the FamilySearch catalog.
• Drew discusses the FamilySearch announcements of new records added to their site.
• Family Chartmasters has announced announced a new book, Zap the Grandma Gap: Connect with Your Family by Connecting Them to Their Family History. The book is available at https://zapthegrandmagap.com.
• Drew suggests using Blogtrottr to notify you when there's a new episode of the podcast. Add the RSS address and an email will be sent to your mailbox.

Listener email includes:

• George provides more information about locating Boer War records to Jane, a follow-up to the discussion on episode #246.
• Michelle asks for advice about obtaining Railroad Retirement Board records.
• Rich identified an interesting site, WhatWasThere at http://www.whatwasthere.com.
• Ann recommends Google Picasa for organizing digital photographs.
• John makes multiple copies of the same digital photo and stores a copy with each person's record.
• George has bought a new CanoScan scanner and is busy digitizing all his documents and photographs.

The news includes:

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announced the creation of a new society to promote the preservation of records in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Society of Preservation Patriots recognizes donors of $250 or more to the Rabbi Malcolm Stern-NARA Gift Fund of the Preserve the Pensions initiative.
• The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) announced its new blog, SpringBoard: News and Notes.
• The Newberry Library's Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture announced the release of a new historical web resource, the Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey, a collection of translations of approximately 50,000 newspaper articles from the 1860s to the 1930s from 22 ethnic newspapers.
• MyHeritage has released a new version of the MyHeritage app (v2.0) that lets users "edit on the go."
• The Blog Book Tour brings new books and authors directly to users' computers January 10-26, 2013.
• WikiTree announced free comparisons of GEDCOM files.
• Mahlon discusses Oklahoma death records available at http://oklahomadeathindex.blogspot.com.
• FamilySearch announced the addition of 7 million new records on January 15, 2013.

Listener email includes:

• Jane asks for pointers to record resources for the Boer Wars in South Africa
• Lori asks about problems obtaining SS-5 forms from the U.S. Social Security Administration.
• Carole describes her frustration at trying to obtain SS-5s.
• Shawn asked about the military pension records discussed in the December podcast at fold3.com.
• Ashley talks about her Slovak family.
• Anne purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 and is very pleased with it. (Learn more at http://scanners.fcpa.fujitsu.com/scansnap11/s1100.html.) She also discusses how she solved a handwriting interpretation problem.
• Virginia asks for guidance for how to enter a family scandal into her genealogy database.
• Jonathan is seeking a genealogical researcher for his Scottish Cameron emigrant ancestor. (Visit the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) website, the ICAPGen website, the Association of Professional Genealogists website, and the Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) website.
• Kelly asks about naming conventions for digital photos.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com's sale to Permira Advisors, LLP, was concluded on December 31, 2012.
• Findmypast.com announced the release of of significant records from 1790 to present for the U.S., the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
• Findmypast.com announced release of records concerning "The Green Redcoats" and more.
• RootsTech has announced the addition for its 2013 conference of Story@Home with a full selection of classes and workshops.
• The Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRC) has announced that it has released a new search engine for their AID (All Israel Database). While each database is presented in the language of the material found, the search engine can understand both Hebrew and English, thereby making the search more effective than ever.
• The North Carolina Genealogical Society announces its first full webinar, Tarheels in the Family Tree, presented by Helen F. M. Leary, CG Emeritus, FASG, FNGS, to be released on the NCGS website. It is free to all from 18 to 20 January 2013. It will be available after that to NCGS members for free.
• The North Carolina Genealogical Society and the Caswell County Historical Society are hosting an all-day seminar on 6 April 2013 in Yanceyville, NC, with speaker George G. Morgan.
• FamilySearch.org continues to add millions of digitized records.

The listener email includes:

• Carolyn provides a number of suggestions to Evan in South Africa for his search as described in our 26 September 2012 episode.
• Timothy asks if there are any widespread problems or gaps within the 1940 census. He is having difficulty finding his grandfather, Eugene Langford Padgett (b. 1894). He also asks for suggestions concerning source citations for vital records materials found in his family's possession.
• Matthew shared information about a new application under development called "Storied" at kickstarter.com.
• Tom discusses errors that result and are perpetuated from people accepting without question information on online family trees. He urges the use of "critical thought and evaluation" before accepting such information as definitive.

The news includes:

• FamilySearch.org has contributed $250,000 to the Federation of Genealogical Societies' War of 1812 Pensions Digitization Project.
• RootsMagic has just released Version 6 of its family tree software program. A new video is available at their site, and the software is on sale through December 20, 2012.
• MyHeritage.com has announced its purchase of Geni.com.
• Origins.net announced 169,100 burial indexes (1560-1909) and 140,000 baptism indexes (1538-1882) covering Middlesex and London.
• Ancestry.com has announced the launch of its new newspaper site, Newspapers.com.
• The University of Indianapolis is teaming up with Ancestry.com to encourage students to explore and reflect on their family history.
• Ancestry.com has announced the launch of two new collections at their website: U.S. Headstone Applications, 1825-1963 and U.S. Burial Registers, Military Posts and National Cemeteries, 1862-1960.
• Ancestry.com has announced a new Community Support site at its website.
• WikiTree announces "Cousin Bait" Toolkits.
• FamilySearch.org continues its digitization and indexing projects. Learn more on the podcast.
• The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) has announced their election results.
• The New England Historic Genealogical Society has announced that their organization has won the 2012 Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW) "Edition Award" for its book Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston by Helen Mather Crocker, edited by Eileen Hunt Botting and Sarah L. Houser.

George reviews three new publications:

• Family History Library Research (At a Glance sheet) by Carolyn L. Barkley
• Birth, Marriage & Death Records: A Guide for Family Historians by David Annal and Audrey Collins
• Marriage Law for Genealogists: The Definitive Guide by Rebecca Probert

Drew mentions his upcoming appearance at the FGS-sponsored lunch at RootsTech 2013, and discusses a new Google+ facility called Communities.

Listener email includes:

• Jonelle responds concerning her poor experiences with obtaining records assistance from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
• David updates us on the passage of legislation in Northern Ireland to bring access to its BMD registers in line with the practice in Scotland.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com agrees to a $1.6 billion buyout by Permira Advisors LLP.
• The governor and secretary of state of Georgia have announced that funding for the Georgia State Archives has been reinstated for the remainder of this fiscal year.
• FamilySearch continues to digitize and index millions of records and The Guys give an update.
• FamilySearch has been recognized for its "continued dedication and support" of African-American family history at the 2nd International Black Genealogy Summit held in Salt Lake City on October 18-20, 2012.
• WikiTree has announced the release of "MatchBot", a new automated matching tool.
• Origins.net has announced the addition of the first 25 of 176 Irish directories to its service.
• The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) has announced its new Board of Trustees, and additions of a one-hour video about certification and testimonials to its website.

Listener email includes:

• Mac tells us that he was able to obtain records from the U.S. Veterans Administration's Freedom of Information Office for an ancestor who was a Spanish-American War veteran. They conducted a BIRLS (Beneficiary Information and Records Locator Search).
• Doug discusses Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK).
• Sharon tells us that the search for Ellen Chance (discussed on a previous episode) should have included both Ancestry.com and findmypast for both passenger lists and departure records.
• Brad asks for advice about his large genealogy publishing project.
• Jane shares information about Merchant Marine records, and particularly about a list published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service.
• Dennis discusses Reunion 9 and MacFamilyTree.
• Helen asks about possible resources for tracing an ancestor who may have been slain by Native Americans in Iowa in 1858.

The Guys are very pleased to welcome a new sponsor for the Podcast, findmypast.com

The news includes:

• WikiTree announces the re-opening of member registration.
• Mocavo has acquired ReadyMicro in a move to help the company and other organizations holding genealogical information digitize more content for genealogists.
• Origins.net announced that they have added two new collections to their National Wills Index: Lancaster Wills Index (1457-1748 and 1793-1812) and Surrey PCC Will Abstracts (1736-1812).
• Ancestry.com has acquired 1000Memories, Inc.
• Early Bird Registration is now open for RootsTech 2013, and Drew is one of their official bloggers.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced it's 2003 FGS Conference to be held in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
• Our new sponsor, findmypast.com, is offering a 20% discount on its world subscription. Check out their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/findmypastus. They are posting a genealogy tip each day of October in celebration of Family History Month. They also have 84 ancestry family history badges on their Facebook page that you can display and share. Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/findmypastus#!/media/set/?set=a.446586192058898.124787.302628856454633&type=1. In addition, click on the image of the flag and crown to take the “Are You Related to The Queen” 7-question quiz.
• George discusses his terrific experience at the Detroit Public Library and a behind-the-scenes tour of some incredible items in the Burton Historical Collection!

The listener email includes:

• Mike asked for advice about a family story. An ancestor, Ellen Chance, supposedly did not sail on the Titanic, but took another ship to the U.S. in August, the RMS Campania. The Guys did some research and share their results.
• Lee asked for clarification as to which Veterans Affairs location he should contact regarding a Civil War pension file that was closed after 1929. Records for ancestors and surviving spouses who received pension benefits and died in 1930 and later are likely still held by the national Veterans Affairs.
• Blaise shared a fabulous link at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-19487335 for seven monarchs’ missing graves.
• Paul, who lives in Germany, asks whether his English translations of German records can be copyrighted.
• Jeryl asks about Reunion 10 software.
• Rick has recently purchased both the 2^nd and 3^rd editions of George’s book How to Do Everything: Genealogy. He talks about his research in South Carolina and in the Clayton Genealogical Library in Houston.

Drew discusses his discovery of some delayed birth certificates at Ancestry.com

The news includes:

• FamilySearch announces that the 1940 U.S. Federal Census indexing project is wrapped up, and that indexing is beginning on the new U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Community Project. Visit http://familysearch.org/immigration for more information and to volunteer. Another indexing project has begun: the Italian Ancestors Project. Visit http://familysearch.org/italian-ancestors for more information and to volunteer.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced the publication of the new 2nd edition of Bylaws Workbook: A Handbook for New and Established Societies. The book is available through Amazon
• findmypast.com announces major expansions of its U.S. Records Collection.
• findmypast.com also announces a partnership with the Federation of Genealogical Societies to preserve, digitize, and provide access to local records from genealogical societies across the U.S.

Listener email includes:

• Allen asked whether The Guys know anything about the Dutch research site at Genlias. The site will disappear on 1 November 2012, but another site may be taking its place as WieWasWie. The Guys suggest going to that site's blog at http://www.wiewaswieblog.nl, translating it from Dutch to English using a tool such as Google Translate, and reading details about the change.
• Connie and Sharon both wrote about the volunteer photographers in cemeteries as a result of requests made through Find A Grave
• Jim wrote about old small town newspapers that may have published lists of deaths for the week or deaths for the year.
• Carole asked for suggestions about where to locate records of Bronze Star military awardees.
• Thomas asked about using the podcast recordings in local genealogical society meetings.
• Pat asked about merchant ship records.
• Evan asked about an ancestor who left Germany for the United States and then went to South Africa.

George discussed some information received about FamilySearch and its progress in digitizing microfilm. He also discussed current crews acquiring digital images around the world. You can contact tomlinsonkl@familysearch.org to learn about opportunities to become involved.

Drew discussed the formation of the Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO) and its plans to develop data standards for genealogy-related data.

Drew also discussed the discontinuation of the group, Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) and his search for other groups forming to take over this volunteer activity.

The news includes:

• RootsMagic announces the release of a new minor update to RootsMagic 5. They also remind listeners that they have more than 40 free online classes available at their website.
• Ancestry.com announces that they will not be releasing a 2013 version of their Family Tree Maker software, but will, instead, release free bonus features to Family Tree Maker 2012.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies 2012 Conference will be held August 29 through September 1, 2012, in Birmingham, Alabama. Online registration is closed but walk-ins are welcome for single- or multiple-day registration.
• Aha! Seminars, Inc., announces a partnership with LearnSurge to provide live and recorded genealogy webinars by George G. Morgan.

George just received the results of a Y-DNA test from Family Tree DNA. The Guys discuss how Drew (and George) pursued researching all the descendants of one of George’s great-great-grandfather’s sons. The Guys located records for almost 200 new people (descendants, spouses, and their parents) in just a few hours.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com has announced their completion of the indexing of the 1940 U.S. Federal Census.
• RootsMagic announced a new update to their software, version 5.0.4.0.
• Online registration for the 2012 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference (August 29-September 1) in Birmingham, Alabama, closes at 7:00 PM CDT on August 17th.
• findmypast.com has officially launched its new site in the U.S. with a special World Subscription at $4.95 per month.
• Unlock the Past has announced their 3rd genealogy cruise in February 2013.

Listener email includes:

• Richard recommends episode 289 at This American Life.
• The Greenoughs thank The Guys and Bill for help locating James Greenough and his wife in Saint John, New Brunswick. Their son has also earned his Boy Scout Genealogy Merit Badge.
• Nancy writes about the Archdiocese for the Military, USA.
• Ed attempted to help another listener seeking Samuel Mansfield in Fayette County, Kentucky.
• Beverly thanks The Guys for recommendations for genealogical education.
• Anne asks how much information should be stored in a genealogical database program and recommendations for how to store it.
• Richard asks about how to find more information about a Hungarian immigrant who is seeking information about her father's parents.
• Roger responds to the discussion about cemetery staff difficulties.
• Rich discusses privacy and security issues.

The news includes:

• FamilySearch.org has completed many states in the 1940 U.S. Federal Census and other projects including South American, U.K., Scotland, Slovakian, Philippines, and Swedish records.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announced that a generous donation of $135,000 has been received from the estate of the late Jon Stedman and is designated for the Preserve the Pensions – War of 1812 Pension Digitization Fund.
• The Illinois State Genealogical Society has announced a War of 1812 Pension Fund Challenge in the amount of $10,000.
• RootsMagic has announced the release of two new CDs of RootsMagic webinars, Volumes 3 and 4. The webinars are still available to view online or download, but there have been many requests to bundle the webinars into CDs.
• The Michigan Department of Education and the Department of Natural Resources have agreed to move selected materials of the Family History Collections at the Library of Michigan to the reading room of the Archives of Michigan.
• The 2012 winners of the Suzanne Winsor Freeman Student Grant were announced at the Southern California Genealogical Society Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank. The winners are Elyse Doerflinger and A.C. Ivory. Each received a check for $500. Congratulations!
• MyHeritage.com has announced that the milestone of 1 billion profiles has been reached. In addition, the company announced its new SuperSearch facility.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies announced the publication of a new book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The Art of One-Name Studies.
• Ancestry.com has recently added 7 more states’ indexes for the 1940 U.S. Federal Census at its site: CO, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA, VT.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announced the appointment of Patricia W. Rand as its treasurer.
• The Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) has awarded its 2011 Volunteer of the Year Award to George G. Morgan.

Listener email includes:

• Pat suggested additional meanings for the term “NG” that appears in some fields on census records.
• Henry shared several ways to perform and improve free searches on the Internet.
• Neil asks The Guys about the ethics of how to handle potentially damaging information discovered during one’s research.
• Phil reports back on advice The Guys gave him about contacting the Special Collections area of the library at Kent State University. He did so and was able to obtain 105 pages of copied materials from the 19th century for his family. He also contacted a presidential library and obtained some copies of extracted materials!
• Bill has been researching an ancestor, John Greenough. However, in his email, he also discussed the importance of using FamilySearch.org and becoming familiar with the ways that can be used to effectively search their millions of records.
• Richard marked a milestone in his listening to The Guys’ podcast episodes.
• Kyle McWhirter has been working on a tool that provides statistics for surnames in the U.S. It is a Surname/Family Name Popularity Index, and it can be accessed at http://family-names.findthedata.org.
• Richard asked The Guys several important questions about completing a family history started by a distant cousin for the Dimmitt family.
• Mike wrote to discuss “term graves” and his experiences with a Chicago cemetery. The Guys ask for comments and suggestions from our listeners.
• J.T. asks questions about autosomal DNA testing and database sizes.
• Janet wrote with questions about her husband’s ancestors (Mansfield) who moved from Virginia to Kentucky. She is trying to determine the correct Samuel Mansfield.

The news includes:

• The Guys will be at the Southern California Genealogical Society’s Jamboree on June 8-10, 2012.
• RootsMagic announces new webinars and additions to its catalog of recorded webinars.
• FamilySearch announces the addition of millions of new records on its site and the completion of almost half of the 1940 U.S. federal census.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announced that its Malcolm H. Stern-NARA Gift Fund has participated with NARA recently in digitizing and making available the records of the Sultana Disaster at the Fold3.com website.
• Ancestry.com announced that it has added its 10 billionth record to its site.
• Ancestry.com announced its AncestryDNA^TM service.

Listener email includes:

• Michael asks about the notation on the 1880 U.S. federal census of “NG” under the birthplaces of an ancestor’s parents.
• Chris sent a link to a fascinating article about using DNA to determine the origin of the Melungeons.(http://news.yahoo.com/dna-study-seeks-origin-appalachias-melungeons-201144041.html) Rich also sent another link on the same subject right after the podcast was recorded. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/melungeon-dna-study-origin_n_1544489.html?ref=fb&ir=Black+Voices&src=sp&comm_ref=false#s=1022230)
• Laurie asked about the available DNA tests, and Drew weighs in based on his experience.
• Walter asks whether there is a DNA test available to determine whether his mother and a good friend, who looks like his mother’s twin, are related.
• Susanne asks about genealogy sites that are free.
• Bob talks about the work he and his wife are doing as arbiters for the 1940 indexing project.
• Tom asks when we think an index to the 1940 census will be available, and comments about the indexes not being made available until an entire state is indexed.
• Amy shares information about Titanicat by Marty Crisp.
• Linda writes about resources for the descendants of the Armenian Genocide. She tells us that University of Michigan Professor Fatma Muge Gocek has done extensive research on this issue with other area specialists (one is also here at U Michigan – Ronald Suny in Political Science). If the person who asked the question in an earlier podcast is still trying to find resources that might help her find information on her ancestors, she might send an e-mail to either Professor Gocek (Gocek@umich.edu) or Professor Suny (rgsuny@umich.edu) to see if they know where information on where people were moved or killed and records that might be useful. Gocek, Suny, and another scholar, Norman Naimark at Stanford, co-wrote a book, A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/MiddleEastern/?view=usa&ci=9780195393743) about the genocide. The Guys both recommend checking the University of South Florida’s Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center site at http://lib.usf.edu/hgsc.
• Ann has a question about her husband’s paternal grandfather who was born in international waters while his mother was emigrating from Wales to the United States. In another email, she reports on remarkable files uncovered in the possession of a library.
• Jo wrote to provide some clues and resources to Moshe who is researching a Jewish man named Markowsky.

The news includes the following items:

• Ancestry.com has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Archives.com.
• FamilySearch.org uploaded 14 million new records for 19 countries, and the 1940 U.S. federal census indexing project is in full swing.
• The Southern Genealogist’s Exchange Society in Jacksonville, Florida, is hosting a virtual tea party on Mother’s Day (U.S.) on 13 May 2012 as a fundraiser and as a way to honor female ancestors.
• Drew reviews the book Family Matters by Michael Sharpe.

Listener email includes:

• Jason asks about a program that keeps track of digital source materials and about cloud computing.
• Doug reports that volunteers for the FamilySearch U.S. federal census indexing project can only specify the state for which they would like to index.
• Paul provided us with a fascinating story about two children who survived the Titanic sinking from a newspaper clipping in his great-grandmother’s scrapbook. He provides a link at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Marcel_Navratil for more information. He also shared information about dogs on the Titanic and offers another link at http://www.mnn.com/family/pets/blogs/remembering-the-dogs-of-the-titanic to learn more - including a story of a mother cat and kittens.
• Eric wrote to discuss copyright and fair use, and discusses a research problem involving a colleague.
• Beth Cook of Best Public Relations wrote to share information that Dracula was Irish and not Transylvanian.
• Janet asks for advice about whether DNA testing might help her in her quest for her husband’s ancestor.
• Moshe sent document images and asks for suggestions about his search for a Jewish man, Irving Markowsky.

The news includes:

• FamilySearch continues to add millions of new records online each month. They also state the 10 new digital records are created every second.
• MyHeritage has announced:
  • Introduction of DNA testing
  • Release of cutting-edge personalized family calendars
  • Release of a new app for the iPhone, iPad, and Android
• The Guild of One-Name Studies announced the results of the Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) 2011 Awards.
• Calico Pie has announced the release of version 5 of Family Historian, its genealogy software program.
• The 1940 U.S. federal census was released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on 2 April 2012.
• FamilySearch is indexing the 1940 U.S. federal census records.
• Ancestry.com has made its collection of 1940s-era materials free through 10 April 2012. They are indexing the 1940 U.S. federal census records.
• Findmypast.com is also participating in indexing the 1940 U.S. federal census records. Furthermore, the company has announced that it will search for your ancestors for you as soon as the records are indexed. They will then send you an email when they have located the census record for you.
• The 1940 U.S. Census Community Project has issued a call for more volunteers to help create a free, searchable index to the 1940 U.S. federal census records. It is a joint venture between Archives.com, FamilySearch.org, and findmypast.com

Listener email includes:

• Dennis asks about some of the questions on the 1940 U.S. federal census. George also advises Dennis that the Farm Schedules and Housing Schedules were destroyed, and that 1940 was the last year in which an annual enumeration by Bureau of Land Management Indian Agents of Native Americans on reservations was performed.
• Phil lives and works in Spain, and he is seeking suggestions on how to learn more and access materials that were donated to Kent State University in Ohio in about 1996.
• Laura in Ireland shares a way that she has gotten her eight-year-old daughter interested in looking at the Irish censuses of 1901 and 1911.
• Ben asked about the term “New York-ODM” which he has encountered in looking for records in the FamilySearch.org catalog.
• Emily responds to Avi's question in the 31 January episode, and suggests contacting the cemetery in the event that it still has the transit permit for the body. It will usually indicate the origin of the shipment of the body, and sometimes contains the deceased’s address, age, and cause of death.
• Caroleen shared her genealogy research blog with The Guys, at http://grampsandmamawsgirls.blogspot.com.
• Richard submitted a follow up on his Robert George Jones, along with an impressive profile of his extensive research.

The Guys talked briefly about their own research into the 1940 U.S. federal census records.

Drew shares his third and final set of interviews from RootsTech 2012.  This set features Janet Hovorka of Family ChartMasters and her three children; D. Joshua Taylor of brightsolid; Michael Leclerc of Mocavo; and Elissa Powell (noted genealogical educator and professional genealogist from Pennsylvania). 

Drew shares the second set of interviews that he conducted at RootsTech 2012.  This set includes FamilySearch Senior VP of Product Engineering David Burggraaf, Instructure CEO Josh Coates, FamilySearch Senior VP of Patron Services Don Anderson, and Google Software Engineer David Barney.

Drew shares the first set of interviews that he conducted at RootsTech 2012.  This set includes FamilySearch Chief Genealogical Officer David Rencher, author and speaker Lisa Alzo (an expert on Eastern European genealogical research), past FamilySearch CEO Jay Verkler, and new FamilySearch CEO Dennis Brimhall.

The news includes:

• Who Do You Thing You Are? debuts for its third season on NBC on Friday, February 2, 2012.
• Fold3 announced that it is providing free access to all of its Black History Collection records throughout the month of February in celebration of Black History Month.
• brightsolid is one of the major sponsors for RootsTech 2012 in Salt Lake City this week.
• brightsolid has announced that they have recruited renowned genealogist D. Joshua Taylor as their business development manager and media spokesperson in the U.S.
• WikiTree has announced that they have closed new user registration. New members must now be invited by current WikiTree members.
• Ancestry.com, Behind the Name, and WeRelate have announced a new approach for searching for variant names. Learn more at http://www.werelate.org/wiki/WeRelate:Variant_names_project.
• Ancestry.com is partnering with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to bring more than 300 years of Pennsylvania records online.
• George G. Morgan's new book, How to Do Everything Genealogy, 3^rd edition, has just been published by McGraw-Hill in softcover and in electronic format. George will soon announce how people can order a signed copy.
• Registration is now open for the Federation of Genealogical Society's 2012 Conference on August 29 to September 1, 2012, in Birmingham, Alabama.
• Registration is open for the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree on June 8-10, 2012, in Burbank, California.
• DNA genotyping is being used to help answer the centuries-old mystery of the so-called "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island on North Carolina's Outer Banks. Learn more at http://the-scientist.com/2012/01/01/lost-colony-dna/.

Listener email includes:

• Joel Weintraub tells The Guys about a collection of One-Step tools for working with the forthcoming 1940 U.S. Federal Census at Steve Morse's website.
• Patricia has a question about her great-grandfather, John A. Hamilton.
• Rob of New Port Richey, Florida, asks about access at the University of South Florida Tampa Library and at the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library system to records outside of Florida.
• Margaret discusses how she shares family history information with relatives and others using her blog and Dropbox.
• Steve shares information with family members in a similar manner. He also talks about his experiences in transferring data between genealogy database programs, a topic that The Guys discussed in a previous episode.
• Avi asks questions concerning his family members who lived in the area of Troy, New York.
• Phil asks for help because he has discovered that his grandmother had four first names.

The Guys reviewed several new items:

• Family Roots Publishing has a new book by Ruby Coleman titled Genealogical Research in Nebraska. (Order at http://www.familyrootspublishing.com/store/product_view.php?id=1545.)
• Genealogical Publishing Companyhas released three new QuickSheet publications written by Elizabeth Shown Mills. They are:
  • The Historical Biographer's Guide to the Research Process
  • The Historical Biographer's Guide to Finding People in Databases & Indexes
  • The Historical Biographer's Guide to Cluster Research (the FAN Principle)

The news includes:

• FamilySearch ushers in 2012 by adding 119 million new records.
• The New England Historic Genealogical Society announces education programs at its Boston facility.
• The Association of Professional Genealogists has added back issues of the APG Quarterly for 2004-2011 available in the Members Only area of its website.
• Arphax Publishing Co. announces the launch of its historical maps website, HistoryGeo.com.
• GenSoftReviews announces the 2011 User Choice Awards.

Listener email includes:

• Many condolences have been received from around the world for the passing of Fletcher, our dilute calico cat who "spoke" on many podcasts over the years. She died on 8 December 2011 and is deeply missed.
• Carole advises us that the Doña Ana County Genealogical Society in Las Cruces, New Mexico, will be holding its first conference in April 2012. She also discusses the recurrent problem of the accuracy of documentation and the conflicting data that can result.
• Dave recently wrote about his research in St. Croix. Listeners may be interested in reading his blog at http://200inparadise.blogspot.com.
• Mac tells us that if you are going to order any New York certificates, you might also want to cross-reference the databases at italiangen.org.
• Rich asks a fascinating question about how to represent the correct country in his RootsMagic software for Canada at different historical periods.
• Wayne reports that he cannot download the podcast using the latest version of the Ubuntu operating system. The Guys ask other listeners about their experiences with this.
• Maria asks Hank Jones and The Guys about Palatines in Australia.
• Sébastien has had good results with the DNA genealogy study between Coombs and Comeau descendants. He recommends the site at en.comeaunet.org/dna/big-annoucement-regarding-antoine-comeau-2/ to our listeners who may have a Coombs ancestor.
• Joel Weintraub tells us that the discussion on a previous podcast about markings on ships' passenger lists/manifests could also have pointed people to the site at www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/Manifests/.
• Mark shared with us a publication by the St. Louis Post Dispatch that discusses the new National Personnel Records Center facility. The 12-page PDF document is an excellent overview of the NPRC, where many U.S. military service records are stored.
• Noi asks for a recommendation of a good website that compares genealogy database software programs. We recommend going to Wikipedia and searching for the phrase “Comparison of Genealogy Software” for some excellent comparisons.
• Susan asks about whether she should use Family Tree Maker 2012 or RootsMagic. This spurred a detailed discussion by The Guys about the GEDCOM standard and how data is exported from one program and imported to another. They talk about the fact that there will be a need to manually handle some data after the transfer.

The news includes:

• The Guys announce the death of their cat, Fletcher, on 8 December 2011. Fletcher was a vocal contributor to the Podcast over the years and received email and inquiries from the show's listeners. She is very much missed.
• Three leading genealogy organizations, Archives.com, FamilySearch International, and findmypast.com, have announced that they are joining forces to launch a project to index and make available the 1940 U.S. federal census images.
• MyHeritage unveiled an innovative mobile family tree app for iPad, iPhone, and Android.
• MyHeritage has also released the new Family Tree Builder 6.0
• FamilySearch added new records for the U.S., Canada, Estonia, Jamaica, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, and Sweden.
• A new effort called the Genealogists for Families Kiva Project that will make small loans to help those less fortunate.
• Ancestry.com has released two million North Carolina World War II Draft Cards at its site.
• Moorshead Magazines Ltd. is releasing on 1 January 2012 a new publication, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors. They are also carrying Maureen Taylor's newest book, Bonnets and Hats. Visit http://www.familychronicle.com/books.htm for more information.
• 1000Memories provides an excellent place on the Internet to organize, share, and discover the old photos and memories of your family and friends.

George discusses two exciting finds in his genealogy from this month.

Listener email includes:

• Peter asks for ideas about how to share his research with family members.
• Barb discusses how much she likes Family Tree Maker 2012's new sync facility. She also talks about Memeo Autosync (at http://www.memeo.com/autosync.php) and its ability to sync folders on different computers.
• Dave discusses his research on St. Croix and the different family perspective it gives.
• Maria discusses her problematic Northcote ancestor who emigrated from Exeter, Devon, England, to Australia.
• Connie has suggestions for Richard and his North Dakota research, including newspapers from across the state. Visit http://history.nd.gov/archives/whatnewspapers.html for many details.
• Eric wrote that Ancestry.com is requiring the purchase of a copy of Family Tree Maker 2012 to demonstrate the program to others.
• Judy asks for suggestions about how to lay out complicated intermarriage families so that they can be more easily conceptualized and understood.

The Genealogy Guys announce that there have been over 1,000,000 downloads of the podcast since it began on 5 September 2005!

Thanks to all our listeners!!!

The news includes:

• The British Library has announced the launch of the British Newspaper Archive website. It initially hosts more than 4 million pages from more than 200 British and Irish newspapers, primarily from the 18th and 19th centuries.
• RootsMagic has announced the official release of RootsMagic Version 5, the latest version of its award-winning software.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies has introduced flexible membership joining rates in six currencies.
• A new grassroots group called Saving Ours, concerned with preserving our archived materials, has launched a new website at SavingOurs.com.
• FamilySearch has added 18 million new records from 12 countries to its site, including 21 new U.S. collections.
• Ancestry.com has announced a newly upgraded app at the iTunes store.
• Ancestry.com has announced the release of Family Tree Maker software for the Macintosh.

The Guys review the following new print resources:

• Applications for Enrollment of Creek Newborn Act of 1905, Volume I, transcribed by Jeff Bowen. (Clearfield Publishing, 2011.)
• Seminole of Florida, Indian Census 1930-1940 With Birth and Death Records 1930-1938, transcribed by Jeff Bowen. (Clearfield Publishing, 2011.)
• The Guide to FamilySearch Online by James L. Tanner. (Bookmark Graphics, 2011.) Available at Amazon.com.
• English Genealogy Research by Paul Milner, a new QuickSheet publication from Genealogical Publishing Company.

The listener email includes:

• Richard is looking for clues to locating his grandmother's cousin Robert George Jones.
• Vickie is researching her great-great-grandfather, Francis Edward Johnson, a longtime brick wall.
• Susan describes how she copies PDF files between desktop, iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
• Rich adds to the PDF discussion and uses O'Reilly's free Bookworm services at bookworm.oreilly.com.
• Maria is researching her great-great-grandfather after his arrival in Australia, circa 1866.
• Michael would like to contact Judy to help chart her family tree. [Judy: Please email us again]
• Laura asks if there is a new edition of Professional Genealogy being published.
• Patti is researching the marriage of her great-aunt, who served with the Women's Army Corps, in 1945 in Italy while still in service. She is seeking Italian civil registration records.
• Brad is seeking a professional researcher to help with work in Georgia and Tennessee. The Guys suggested directories at the websites of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Board for Certification of Genealogists.
• Jason has questions about notations on ships' passenger lists and about the College of Arms and coats-of-arms.

The news includes:

• FamilySearch has announced a new CEO, Dennis C. Brimhall, who will succeed Jay L. Verkler on 2 January 2012.
• FamilySearch has added 2 million records to its U.S. collections.
• A new monthly podcast, the Polish Genealogy Podcast, has begun. You can learn more about the podcast at the FaceBook page at http://www.facebook.com/PolishGenealogyPodcast. The first episode can be downloaded from http://forums.ancestry-world.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1862.
• The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration has awarded Archives.com the hosting of the 1940 U.S. federal census images when they are released on 2 April 2012.
• MyHeritage has announced that it has acquired FamilyLink.com, Inc., owner of FamilyLink.com and WorldVitalRecords.com.
• Ancestry.com and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have announced that material from four museum collections containing information on more than 30,000 victims of Nazi persecution is now available at Ancestry.com and available at no cost.
• Ancestry.com has added more than 50 million new U.S. birth, marriage, and death records to its U.S. Vital Records Collection.
• Pennsylvania's new vital records bill (SB-361) would set at 50 years when death records and 105 years when birth records become open to the public.
• Britain's Prince Charles has stated that his genealogy connects him to Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century Romanian warlord.
• "Who Do You Think You Are?," the popular genealogy television series, resumes on Friday, 3 February 2012.

Listener email includes:

• Mac asks whether you need permission to publish screen shots taken at Internet websites.
• Christine asks for suggesions for places to search for information about servants and laborers in Minnesota in the first decade of the 20th century.
• Claire comments on using the iPad and popular genealogical software. She also discusses her participation in the Smith Surname Project.
• Don had a grandfather who would not talk about his past, and the things he once talked about he later denied. Don is looking for suggestions to help him get past his brick wall.
• Mary Ann reminds us that the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) is another excellent place to search for digitized books online.
• Beth is using a program called Bento on her iPad to organize and show off her photographs.
• Judy asked for help in downloading a PDF book from her computer to her iPad and iPhone.

Drew discusses some of his recent research work.

•    

The news includes:

• Footnote.com has rebranded and changed its name to Fold3.com.
• Ancestry.com has released the 1930 Mexico National Census.
• RootsMagic has released Personal Historian, Version 2.
• Ancestry.com has released Family Tree Maker 2012 with TreeSync.
• findmypast.ie has launched online Irish family history forums.
• Arphax Publishing goes online with online maps HistoryGeo.com.
• South Georgia newspapers are now available online at the Digital Library of Georgia.
• The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania will hold its Pennsylvania Family History Day in Exton, PA, on Saturday, November 5, 2011.
• Early Bird registration for RootsTech 2012 in Salt Lake City on February 2-4, 2012, is available until November 30, 2011.
• Ancestry.com has expanded its U.S. School Yearbook Collection.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has introduced a new app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, available through iTunes.
• FamilySearch continues to release massive amounts of new content. Drew discusses some new materials, but be sure to check back at FamilySearch often.
• The 1940 U.S. Federal Census digital images will be available at the National Archives and Records Administration website on April 2, 2012. FamilySearch and Ancestry.com will both have the images at their sites for free. FamilySearch is actively recruiting volunteers to index the records. Ancestry.com, too, will be working to expedite indexing of these important records.

Listener email includes:

• Kevin asks about genealogy software for the Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
• Judy asks how to transfer a PDF book to her iPad and iPhone.
• You may want to check out a new site, Storytree, at http://www.storytree.me as a place to capture your family stories.
• Another new site, RestingSpot.com, at http://restingspot.com, seeks to record cemeteries and resting spots and mark them with GPS coordinates in a huge database.
• Brad asks about the availability of grants for genealogical projects.
• Sue recommends a book by Judy Jacobson titled History for Genealogists as a helpful resource for timelining your ancestors' lives and placing them into historical context.
• Jeff asks about the availability of Pennsylvania vital records.
• Judy follows up on her quest for ancestors in Southwestern Virginia in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The news includes:

• FamilySearch announces the update of its YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/familysearch.
• MyHeritage.com now offers shared group subscription payments.
• Family Tree DNA is now accepting third party transfers of test results.
• Synium Software has released MacFamilyTree 6.1 and MobileFamilyTreePro.
• FamilySearch has released 12 million new records and images for England and Mexico, 1.8 million records to 23 U.S. collections, and 2.3 million images to its Hungary collections.
• Joel Weintraub and Steve Morse announce a new One-Step Tutorial at http://stevemorse.org about the forthcoming 1940 U.S. federal census release in April 2012.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies announces extended membership to new joiners at the NZ Family History Fair in Hamilton on 26-27 August 2011, and for the whole month of August 2011 at www.one-name.org/nzfhf-offer.html.
• WikiTree announced that they have passed 2 million profiles and that they have released a new Relationship Finder. In addition, they have announced that Thomas MacEntee has joined the WikiTree team as their Genealogy Ninja.
• The Admiral Nimitz Foundation has recently created the Society of the Sons and Daughters of World War II Veterans. The Society's goal is to preserve the stories of sacrifice and achievement of America's "greatest generation." They plan to preserve important materials in digital format to preserve them and make them available.

Listener email includes:

• Nancy suggests that Colleen expand her New York query by checking city directories.
• Joseph asked about the existence of a Florida cemetery registry. Drew suggested he contact the Florida State Genealogical Society.
• Sue asked about the availability of software for genealogical societies' websites. The Guys suggested that she contact EasyNetSites which provides modular society software service.
• Russ asked if The Guys were aware of the blog about the Stockton School in East Orange, New Jersey. Drew replied that it belonged to his brother!
• Alan advised that there is OCR software that reads Fraktur. He obtained FreeOCR from http://www.freeOCR.net.
• John asked whether Drew's Twitter feed had been compromised.
• Erin asked Drew about using his iPad for genealogical research vs. using a netbook.
• Melanie asked about a relationship term used in the 1910 U.S. census wherein an ancestor, his wife, and four children have an older widow living with them whose relationship is listed as "companion." Listeners can send in their comments and suggestions about this to us.
• Grace is our new "Marathon Woman." She also asked about RootsTelevision. Megan Smolenyak advised George recently that the site has been taken down. The Guys hope to learn more at the FGS Conference in Springfield, Illinois, next month.
• Carole made some suggestions for Beverly's quandary about Canadian immigration information.
• The Indiana Genealogical Society issued a matching $10,000 grant challenge to help funding for the FGS "Preserve the Pensions" program. See their site at http://www.indgensoc.org/projects/1812_pensions.php and donate to make your dollars grow! And learn more at http://fgs.org/1812.
• Dave installed the new Mac OS X Lion, but was really upset that Carbonite (back up) is not ready to support it!

The Genealogy Guys record this episode in front of a live audience at the annual Summer Institute of the Dallas Genealogical Society, in the Auditorium of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in downtown Dallas, Texas. 

This week's news includes:

• Cyndi's List at www.cyndislist.com has launched a new website with a new look, new organization, and improved navigation.
• MyHeritage.com has acquired Bliscy.pl from Poland's Internet publishing company, Wirtualna Polska, expanding its presence in the Polish family history market.
• Anthony Ray, a junior majoring in Music at West Coast Bible College in Lancaster, California, was introduced at the 2011 Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank as this year’s recipient of the Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies will be at the Colorado Family History Expo on June 24-25 in Loveland, Colorado, and will offer extended membership to people joining for the first time. The offer is also good at www.one-name.org/colorado-offer.html.
• The "Genealogy Roadshow" currently filming in Ireland will make its debut on RTE later this summer, and it should also be accessible online at http://www.rte.ie/player.

This week's email includes:

• Linda, listening to Episode #222, where George talked about the 1880 U.S. federal census and the Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent schedules, tells us that there is a "Statewide Index to Indiana's 1880 DDD Schedules" available on CD-ROM from the Indiana Genealogical Society. The society also offfers a "Statewide Index to Indiana's 1890 Soldiers Enrollment Lists".
• Margie thanks Bill for suggestions about where to locate more information about the WPA.
• Brandt has questions about source citations for some land records he has come across.
• Charleen asked for advice about very early birth records in New York State.

The Guys review three new books:

• Complete Delaware Roll of 1898, transcribed by Jeff Bowen. (Clearfield Company and Genealogical Publishing Co., 2011)
• Finding the Civil War in Your Family Album by Maureen A. Taylor (Picture Perfect Press, 2011)
• NGS Research in the States Series: South Carolina by Janis Walker Gilmore (National Genealogical Society, 2011)

Drew interviewed Lisa Louise Cooke, host of the Genealogy Gems Podcast, at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank, California, June 2011.  Lisa talks about some of her Google-related presentations and products.

The news includes:

• The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy opened registration on June 4th for its annual institute in Salt Lake City on January 23-27, 2012. More information is available at www.infouga.org.
• Real-Time Collaboration announces AncestorSync, which allows you to seamlessly download, upload, or synchronize your family tree from your online pedigree to your personal computer and back again. Learn more at www.ancestorsync.com.
  
• FamilySearch has recently added millions of records about the U.S. Civil War, and plans much more. See more at familysearch.org/civilwar.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies is offering a special extended membership offer to new members. The offer is available from June 24th through June 26th only at www.one-name.org/yorkoffer.html.
• Big Mountain Productions is currently filming "The Genealogy Roadshow" in Ireland, with host Derek Mooney, and it will begin broadcasting in mid- to late-August.
• The United States Holocaust Museum and Ancestry.com have partnered to launch the World Memory Project at www.worldmemoryproject.org to build the world's largest online resource on Jewish victims and non-Jews who were targeted for persecution by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
  
• The British Library has announced that it will digitize 40 million pages of its newspaper collection at Collindale.
  
• ProQuest has updated its list of impressive databases that provide genealogists with a wealth of online data.
• The New England Historic Genealogical Society has announced upcoming events, programs, and tours for June through September 2011.

Listener email includes:

• Beverly asks for information about the RSS download address for the podcast.
• Linda made a breakthrough on her great-grandfather's first wife in Kentucky based on a link George provided at the recent NEHGS seminar. Look at "Kentucky Genealogy and History Guide" at http://kentuckygenealogysearch.com.
• Mike advised The Guys that George's book How to Do Everything: Genealogy appears in the movie Little Fockers.
• Chris asks for ideas about what to save and what not to save.
• Karen responded to Drew's challenge about locaing his father's family in the 1920 Newark, NJ census.
• David advises The Guys that The Civil Registration Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 has recently received royal assent. It will allow access to the Civil Registration registers. More information is available at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/nia/2011/20/contents/enacted.
• Sheri wrote about the terrible tornadoes in the U.S., and she wants to know if there are resources available online to help people be reunited with photographs, Bibles, documents, and other materials. Listeners are encouraged to email The Guys with their ideas and information.
• Patti asks George about U.S. federal censuses and the Agricultural Schedules.
• Lynda tells about visiting SW Virginia and making contact with Mary Kegley, the author of a number of books about the area. Lynda encourages people to make contact with historical and genealogical societies because they often have unique content that may help your research.
• Ed asks about genealogy software that might work on a desktop computer, a laptop, and on an iPad2. 

The Genealogy Guys travel to Boston, Massachusetts, to the headquarters of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, where they record this episode in front of a live audience.

News stories discussed on this episode:

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announces that it is beginning a series of online webinars concerning a wide range of society management topics. These are part of their new online education initiative. The first webinar will be held on Saturday, April 30, 2011, from 3:00 to 4:30 PM Central Time (US) with technology expert and FGS board member Thomas MacEntee presenting "Social Networking for Genealogy Societies." There will be one free webinar each quarter open to the general public, and more webinars for FGS members only. All webinars hold up to 1,000 pre-registered participants. All webinars will be recorded and made available in the FGS Members Only area of its website. Registration for the first webinar is available at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/401693254.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announced and has launched its weekly live radio program on the Internet called My Society. The weekly programs will be broadcast over the Internet at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mysociety at 1 PM Central Time (US). They will be hosted by a variety of well-known genealogists and FGS board members, and will feature conversations with leaders in the genealogical community and society officers and members. A society will also be spotlighted in each show. The show debuted on Saturday, April 23, 2011, with Curt Witcher, manager of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Shows will be recorded and archived for later download.
• A new genealogy-specific search engine has been launched. Mocavo (http://mocavo.com) is free and searches free websites including genealogy message boards, family trees, state and local historical societies, the Library of Congress, National Archives, Ellis Island, Find A Grave, the Internet Archive, various U.S. state archives, and many tens of thousands of genealogy sites built by individuals.

The Guys discuss upcoming conferences where they will be speaking in coming months.

George announced that he has begun working on a third edition of his book, How to Do Everything: Genealogy, for McGraw-Hill Professional. The new book will be available at the end of 2011 or early 2012.

Listener email includes:

• Joanne asks how to handle information for individuals about whom you are are unsure.
• Matt asks about the preferred method of long term care and preservation of gravestones and gravesites.
• Melanie updates us about her multiple-choice grandfather (Episode #206), and she asks The Guys about their take on a child being listed in a parent's will after the child is deceased.
• George asks about some snafus in past podcasts.
• Cheryl reports on billing changes at NewspaperArchive.com.
• Beverly asks for suggestions about a quandary she has encounted in Canadian immigration. George suggests visiting the Library and Archives Canada website at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca and searching The Genealogy Centre there at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html.
• Gene comments about an image of a Stephenville, Newfoundland, baptismal certificate in George's How to Do Everything: Genealogy, 2nd edition.
• Gavin shares a wonderful story about having requested information from St. Michael's Industrial School for Boys at which his paternal grandfather lived in the 1930s, and the tremendous treasures he received.<
• Mac asks about U.S. Agricultural Census Schedules online at Ancestry.com and how to correctly read them. George shares details on the types of information to be found on these census schedules and how they can be used to place your ancestors into context of their activities on their farms.
• Shaun comments on the Flip-Pal portable scanner and the fact that he uses an Eye-Fi memory card which can automatically transfer scans to a computer.
• Lynda asks about conflicting vital records, as in the example of a discrepancies in the name of her great-grandmother's name.
• Kenneth writes to comment again about the tintype he had sent in earlier and the colorization and gilding on it.

The news includes:

• The New England Historic Genealogical Society, together with the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts and the American Jewish Historical Society of New England have made available for the first time online acess to a growing database that currently includes 13 Massachusetts Jewish cemeteries, with more added each week.
• Genealogist Anthony Ray of Palmdale, California, has been named the recipient of the 2011 Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant.
• WikiTree announces that it has reached 1 million profiles.
• The California Genealogical Society will host a family history day with Ancestry.com on 4-5 November 2011 at the Hyatt Embarcadero in San Francisco.

George extends a special thank you to Miriam in Spokane, Washington, for taking photos of a tombstone there and for locating and sending a copy of the obituary.

Listener email includes:

• Russ enjoyed the episode in which Drew unpacked a box of family materials that his brother sent to him.
• Lee has enjoyed the interviews that Drew conducted at RootsTech, but suggests that RootsTech provide a quieter venue for such interviews next year.
• Bill reports that NARA will hold its annual genealogy fair on 24 April 2011 in Washington, DC. One of the main themes is WPA records. View the schedule at http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/know-your-records/genealogy-fair/2008.html#schedule
• Judy is seeking advice on researching her mother's family in Southwest Virginia.
• Mark in Plymouth, UK, asks about the availability of apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, and Blackberry phones.
• Sean reports on the status of RootsMagic's work to import freeform source citations and place them into formatted source citation templates.
• Gordon provides excellent advice for flattening curled or rolled up paper by humidifying it. He also strongly warns that photographs should not be treated this way. He suggests a more detailed discussion in Photographs: Archival Care and Management, by Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Diane Vogt-O’Connor published by the Society of American Archivists.
• Cheryl provides the pricing at NARA for copies of military files.
• Michelle thanks The Guys for their help in making contact with her Irish cousins. It's a real success story.

The Guys review and recommend a number of great genealogy books:

• Our Daily Bread, German Village Life, 1500-1850, by Teva J. Schee, is published by Adventis Press. It sells in softcover for $19.95. It is also available in eBook format for Kindle for $9.95.
• The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation, by Maureen Taylor, is published by The Kent State University Press. It retails for $45 but is currently listed at Amazon.com for $29.70.
• The Ultimate Search Book, 2011 Edition, by Lori Carangelo, is published by Genealogical Publishing Company for the Clearfield Company. It sells for $39.95.
• Revolutionary War Pensions (Awarded by State Governments 1775-1874, the General and Federal Governments Prior to 1814, and by Private Acts of Congress to 1905), by Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck, is published by Genealogical Publishing Company. It sells for $89.50.
• The Family Tree Sourcebook: Your Essential Directory of American County and Town Records, from the editors of Family Tree Magazine, is published by Family Tree Books. It also provides a 30-day free membership to http://www.familytreemagazine.com. It sells for $34.95.
• Online State Resources for Genealogy, by Michael Hait, is published at Lulu.com as an eBook. It sells for $15.00 and is delivered electronically.

Drew gives George one more week off by making this another all-interview episode (the remaining 3 interviews that Drew conducted while attending RootsTech 2011 in Salt Lake City in February).  The interviews were with:

• Tami Glatz, President of the Second Life chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and genealogical lecturer;
• Paul Nauta, Manager of Public Affairs for FamilySearch;
• Audrey Collins, Family History Specialist at The National Archives, UK.

Drew gives George the week off by making this an all-interview episode (3 of the interviews that Drew conducted while attending RootsTech 2011 in Salt Lake City earlier in the month).  The interviews were with:

• Louise St Denis, Director of the National Institute for Genealogical Studies (www.genealogicalstudies.com), an educational organization affiliated with the University of Toronto.  NIGS has just acquired the social networking site Genealogy Wise.
• Brewster Kahle, Chairman of the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) and long-time Internet entrepreneur and activist.
• Anne Roach, Chair of RootsTech 2011 (rootstech.familysearch.org).

The news includes:

• Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, nationally known author, editor, instructor, lecturer, researcher and much loved friend in the genealogy community, died on 17 February 2011.
• Ancestry.com marks Black History Month with the addition of 250,000 new African-American records.
• Moorshead Magazines has published a new issue of Family Chronicle with a new article by George.
• The Guild of One-Name Studies extends a special offer to attendees of the Who Do You Think You Are LIVE show in Olympia, London, England this coming weekend, and also to anyone else unable to attend. The latter offer is available at http://www.one-name.org/specialoffer.html for one week from the beginning of the show on 25 February 2011.
• Real-Time Collaboration, Inc., acquires Ohana Software LLC to help extend compatibility of genealogy collaboration.
• The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) announced that the dates of next year's institute will be January 23-27 at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. The RootsTech 2012 conference will be held there the following week, February 2-4, 2012.
• The Tri-City Genealogical Society has concluded a vast indexing project of photographs from South Central Washington State. You may search the indexes at their website.
• GeneaPress is a new site that publishes press releases/announcements for the genealogy community. The Guys have alse embedded a link in their website. Check it out!

The Guys discuss Drew's experiences at the GenTech conference in Salt Lake City. Interviews from the conference will follow in forthcoming podcasts.

Listener email included:

• Margie asks for guidance about where to locate materials about the WPA concerning the area around Springfield, Massachusetts.
• Carole asks for guidance about migrating from one genealogy database program to another, and what to do with free-form source text and formal source templates.
• Steve commented on episode #215, and he also has just ordered the Flip-Pal scanner.
• Kenneth was fortunate that he has inherited 17 photo albums and his mother's journals. He has been scanning these items, and he shared a wonderful, restored timtype of his great-grandfather in Union Army uniform.
• Karen asks about why we should save of our own records and artifacts for future generations.
• Melanie has some rolled up documents that she would like to flatten but not frame.
• Marcie asked us to always include the year in the dates of events we mention in the podcast.
• Maureen is looking for software to handle records for the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas.
• Gus is seeking guidance about how to enter names of royal personages into his database. Calling all listeners to provide feedback and suggestions!

The news includes:

• The Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant has been established and will be awarded to a student attending the 2011 Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree. Application deadline is March 1, 2011. For more information, contact Denise Levenick at dmlevenick@gmail.com or at 626.688.8974.
• NBC launches the second season of "Who Do You Think You Are?" on Friday, February 4th.
• Ancestry.com has announced the discontinuation of its Expert Connect service.
• Moorshead Magazines, publishers of Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy, and History Magazine, have a special offer. Buy two books, Life During the Civil War and Tracing Your Civil War Ancestors, and pay shipping for just one.  Visit Family Chronicle at http://www.familychronicle.com for more information and to order these books.
• MyHeritage.com has announced a major upgrade on its Smart Matching (tm) technology at its website.

The Guys open one of the boxes of family materials that Drew's brother, Jeff, sent him in December. Drew explores the wealth of new materials he has received and he and George describe and discuss them in detail. Photographs, letters, certificates and diplomas, V-mail, letters, and more are included. Here are links to two pages:

Drew's Mother and Friend beside Jeep (ca. 1943) Marriage Card received by Drew's Parents

The news includes:

• GenSoftReviews announced its 2010 Users Choice Awards. Our sponsor, RootsMagic, was awarded first place.
• Ancestry.com announced the release of Family Tree Maker for the Macintosh. They also announced new and updated collections, including Swedish Church Records and Maine births, marriages, and deaths collections.
• The Illinois State Genealogical Society announced the unveiling of their new website at http://www.ilgensoc.org, using EasyNetSites.
• A new genealogy site has been announced. It is Tpstry at http://tpstry.com.

Listener email includes:

• Questions about the downloads of the Podcast.
• Donna asked about the Federation of Genealogical Societies' Save the Pensions! fund and its place in the Stern-NARA Fund at FGS.
• Tim writes about Drew's connection to the Perry-Boddies lines.
• Samuel asks about DNA testing to locate relations to males in Ireland.
• Victoria wants to know the reasons behind two couples in England (1851 and 1893) whose marriage registers show living at the same address at the time of their marriages.
• Ken asks about using Dropbox with his Family Tree Maker files.
• Mary asks how to shorten a rediculously long URL. George suggests the use of TinyURL and Drew suggests using bit.ly.
• Tim asks about free vs. pay information.
• Victoria relates a funny story about quirky genealogists.
• Another Victoria tells us about Shakespeare's genealogies in his plays.
• Gus tells us about obtaining military records.
• Donna asks George about differences between RootsMagic and Reunion.

George tellss everyone that there are several new book reviews coming.

 

 

 

 

This week's news includes:

• NBC announces that season two of "Who Do You Think You Are?" premieres on Friday, February 4th.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has appointed Matthew Wright as the new Editor of the FGS FORUM electronic magazine. He succeeds Sandra Hargreaves Luebking who has worked on FORUM for the last 25 years.
• The 1910 Census for Norway is online at http://www.digitalarkivet.no. An English version of the site is available at http://www.digitalarkivet.no/cgi-win/WebFront.exe?slag=vis&tekst=meldingar&spraak=e.
• The New England Historic Genealogical Society (at http://AmericanAncestors.org) announces 4 upcoming events:
  • New Visitor and Welcome Tour - January 8
  • Using AmericanAncestors.org - January 12
  • Dom's, An Odyssey - January 19
  • Winter Weekend Research Getaway: Effective Use of Technology - January 19
• The revamped ScotlandsPeople is up and running
• The Ontario Genealogical Society announces the appointment of Elizabeth Lapointe as editor of its journal, Families
• The new book, Atlas of East and Coastal Georgia Watercourses and Militia Districts, by Paul K. Graham, has been published. Visit http://pkgraham.com/atlas for more information.
• WikiTree announces a host of new widgets at http://www.wikitree.com/articles/draft-widgets.html.
• Moorshead Publishing has released its new book, ttracing Your Civil War Ancestors, by David A. Norris. For more informaation, visit http://www.familychronicle.com.
• Genealogical Publishing Company (http://www.genealogical.com) has issued its new laminated "Genealogy at a Glance" reference sheet for Scottish Genealogy Research.

This episode's listener email includes:

• Claire shares how she can best clean up family trees and copy people from one tree to another using RootsMagic.
• Judy attests to the fact that the book we recently reviewed, Shaking the Family Tree, by Buzzy Jackson, is a great read.
• Chris has military woes, and asks questions about obtaining copies of military records.
• Barbara wrote to tell us about an article in American Ancestors magazine from Fall 2010 about the article titled "Tracing the Origins if Joseph Herbert," and recommends it for the way the sources are cited.

The Guys discuss the use of CrossOver, and George tells about how simple it was to relink all the graphics for his ancestor research using RootsMagic.

Drew discusses his personal research and the fact that his brother has sent him two new boxes of materials.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com unveils Family Tree Maker for the Macintosh.
• Ancestry.com and The Genealogist in the UK have announced an agreement with The National Archives (UK) to acquire and publish online the 1911 England and Wales Census.
• Ancestry.com has reached an agreement with National Geographic Digital Media, part of National Geographic, in which the latter will host a new family history experience related to the Genographic Project Online.
• Ancestry.com has just launched a major enhancement to its online search templates, the new "Add an Event" facility.
• Moorshead Magazines Ltd., publishers of Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy, and History magazines, announces a new book, Tracing Your Civil War Ancestors, available on 1 January 2011. More details are available at http://www.familychronicle.com.
• The Muskogee Phoenix reports that the Cherokee Nation has begun development of a Virtual Library of Cherokee Knowledge and expects to complete the project in Spring 2011.
• MyHeritage has announced that it can generate a wide variety of pre-defined famiy tree charts easily. High resolution export of charts is free and these can be shared via email and printed in PDF format on home computers. The company has also added a professional poster printing service.
• The National Genealogical Society has announced the appointment of a new board director, Jordan Jones, of Raleigh, NC, to support information technology and solutions.
• The New England Historic Genealogical Society (at its new web address at http://www.AmericanAncestors.org) will host a Winter Weekend Research Getaway - Effective Use of Technology on 27 to 29 January 2011 in Boston. Visit the website for more information.
• The Kansas City Star posteed an article at http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/08/2409249/search-for-kc-potters-fields-documents.html?story_link=email_msg concerning searches for three large potter's fields.

 

Ideas for holiday gifts include:

• The New England Historic Genealogical Society (http://www.AmericanAncestors.org) offers its Family Discovery Package for $99 and an annual membership to NEHGS for $75.
• Ancestry.com is selling NEW subscriptions to its databases.
• The Technology Tamers have produced an Everyday Genealogy 2011 calendar. It is available in a desk pad format from http://www.everydaygenealogy.com for $12.59 with a genealogy tip for every day of the year and as an app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch from the iTunes store for $3.99.

 

The Guys review the following books:

• Sto Lat: A Modern Guide to Polish Genealogy by Cecile (Ceil) Wendt Jensen (See http://mipolonia.net for details and ordering information.)
• Cherokee Citizenship Commission Dockets, Volume II, 1888-1884 and 1887-1889 by Jeff Bowen (Clearfield Company, 2010)
• The Journey Takers by Leslie Albrecht Huber (2010) (See http://www.thejourneytakers.com for details and ordering information.)
• Shaking the Family Treeby Buzzy Jackson (Touchstone, 2010)

 

Listener email includes:

• Mac asks about his scan wand. (And George talks about his Flip Pal scanner.)
• Eric responds about Mitch's problem reading the 1852 California Census for Placer County.
• Brandt has questions about researching adoptions.
• J.T. shares information about another alternative to Parallels, VMWare Fusion, and CrossOver as software that allows Mac users to run Windows programs. He suggests Wine (http://www.winehq.org) - a free open-source program that needs your configuration.
• Tim has three items for The Guys:
  • He suggests the wealth of digital materials online at Georgia's Virtual Vault (http://cdm.sos.state.ga.us/index.php).
  • He asks about copyright ownership for digitized U.S. census images at Ancestry.com, and sourcing them.
  • He has questions about how to greate effective source citations for indexes, books, and other materials.
• Peter McCracken shares information with The Guys about ShipIndex.org, a site at which you can research specific ships to determine where information is available in books, journals, CD-ROMs, websites, and more. The free area contains more than 140K citations and the premium database contains more than 1.5M entries.
• Michael suggests the use of website http://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/newspapers/historical.php at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There is a vast collection there, and there are links to many other newspaper resources.
• Richard reminds us that another great website to post one's genealogical material to is the Free Pages at http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the annual conference of the Florida State Genealogical Society, held at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota.  (Note: At one point during the episode, Drew tries to recall the name and URL of the national program that manages the archiving of local newspapers.  After the recording, a helpful audience member let Drew know that it was the United States Newspaper Program.)

This week's news includes:

• Ancestry.com has announced that it will acquire iArchives and therefore acquire Footnote.com.
• Ancestry.com has added the 1852 California State Census to its U.S. collection.
• Ancestry.co.uk has added "England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861-1941" to its collection.
• Genealogy Gems has announced that the second installment of the Google Earth for Genealogy video series has been released at www.GoogleForGenealogy.com.
• The Ontario (Canada) Genealogical Society has issued a call for papers for its 2012 Conference, to be held in Kingston, Ontario, on June 1-3, 2012. Email conference2012@ogs.on.ca for a copy of the Call for Papers document.
• Leland Meitzler has announced that Thomas MacEntee will join the 2010 Salt Lake Christmas Tour. More information is available at www.SaltLakeChristmasTour.com.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced that it is accepting applications for the position of Editor of its electronic quarterly magazine, the FGS FORUM. Interested parties may request a copy of the position description and submissions details by emailing application@fgs.org. Applications are being accepted through November 1, 2010.
• The Association of Professional Genealogists has announced that it is accepting applications for the position of Webmaster. Interested parties may request more information from Kathleen Hinckley, Executive Director, by emailing admin@apgen.org. Applications are being accepted through November 1, 2010.

Listener email includes:

• Marilyn advises us that TelGen Limited has released "Families," an app for the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad that works with Legacy Family Tree. It is available at www.telgen.co.uk/families for $14.95.
• Marina asks for advice about cleaning up her family history data file.
• Patty is seeking a place online where she can upload her family history file, documents, photos, and more.
• Karyl is looking for suggestions about handling situations like "Great Grandma was adopted" or "discoveries that two of the ten kids of Uncle Bud were actually his granddaughters but there are no clue as to who the mother(s) might have been."
• Tom asks whether, when faced with literally hundreds of names going back that far in a printed [family history] volume, does a family historian or genealogist actually obtain all the original documentation? Birth, marriage and death records?

The Guys discuss a product from CodeWeavers called CrossOver Mac for Macintosh OS X ($39.95) that "allows you to install many popular Windows applications and games on your Intel Mac. Once installed, your application integrates seamlessly in OS X. Just click and run your application directly from the OS X Finder. Clicking a Windows file or document — including email attachments — will launch the appropriate Windows program, allowing you to work on the files. Best of all, you do it all easily and affordably, without needing a Microsoft operating system license." The Guys are now running RootsMagic on their Macs instead of using VMWare Fusion or Parallels software and without buying an expensive Windows operating system license.

More listener email includes:

• Colleen asks about the annual Ancestry.com survey and their statement that they add "millions" of historical records each week. The Guys respond that, with nine national collections of data, they believe that the averages probably work out to millions of new and updated records each week.
• Mitch asks for suggestions for how to gain better access to a legible copy of the 1852 California Census. (See notes for Episode #209 and listen to the podcasts for more details.)
• JoEllen asks for more information about organizing and storing her vast collection of materials. George suggests two sources for archival safe storage materials: Light Impressions and Gaylord. (He drew a blank remembering Gaylord.)
• Eric has questions about military records for his grandfather who served before World War I in the infantry of the State of Florida.
• Jim shares two digital newspaper archive collections with everyone: the California Digital Newspaper Collection and Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
• Pat shares the results of a very successful on-site research trip.

Drew discusses his blog, Rootsmithing at http://rootsmithing.com.

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com has added to its website more than 1,700 recorded oral history interviews from immigrants who arrived in the U.S. through Ellis Island.
• FamilyLink has partnered with Historic Map Works and will soon provide access to the world's leading historical map collection.
• Ancestry.com has launched the largest searchable online yearbook collection with more than 60,000 yearbook records.
• James R. Benn, B.A., M.L.S., has become the new director of the Godfrey Memorial Library in Middleton, Connecticut.
• Ancestry.com has released Family Tree Maker 2011 with more than 100 enhancements to the software.
• Sirius Genealogy 2.0 has announced that it has completed their transformation from a simple blog, into a complete online community for Amateur & Professional Genealogists. Membership is free. In addition to the general community atmosphere, SG2 has developed numerous Google Gadgets, Web Tools and other services to assist genealogists in their mission. Many more exciting tools are on their way!
• "Rare colour footage" of the London Blitz has been discovered in an attic. It has digitised and made available online at http://www.westendatwar.org.uk/category_idtxt__place.aspx.
• RootsTech, A New Genealogy and Technology Conference, will be held on February 10-12, 2011, in Salt Lake City. Learn more at http://www.rootstech.familysearch.org.
• ICAPGen will host a family history conference titled "Becoming an Excellent Genealogist" on October 22-23, 2010, at the Downtown Radisson Hotel in Salt Lake City. For more information and to register, visit http://www.icapgen.org.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies 2011 Conference, "Pathways to the Heartland," will be held September 7-10, 2011, in Springfield, Illinois. More information will be available in coming months at the FGS website at http://www.fgs.org.
• The International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE) has announced its annual Excellence in Writing Competition for 2011. Details and an entry form are available at their website at http://www.isfhwe.org.
• Paul Larsen has released the fourth edition of his book, Crash Course in Genealogy. It is available in print and in an advanced digital eBook format (CD or instant download). Visit http://www.crashcoursebook.com to learn more or to purchase the book or download it.
• A recent article in the Toledo [Ohio] Blade at http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20100916/NEWS16/9150359 provides an update to the story of the Clyde, Ohio, cemetery that was struck by vandals. Repairs and restoration are under way.

Listener email includes:

• Mitch is looking for details about his 3rd great-grandfather and hopes our listeners can help. He believes his ancestor appears on the 1852 California State Census for Placer County, Page 60, Line 28. However, the digitized image at Ancestry.com is so dark that he is having difficulty reading the first initial. He is hoping that the original census page or a better copy of the microfilm exist and can help him discern the intial. Can anyone visit the California State Library and personally check the microfilm for Mitch?
• Bill suggests that The Guys regularly report on what they are researching and the resources they are using.
• Walter commented on the discussion in the podcast from the FGS Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, concerning which is the older U.S. public university: the University of North Carolina or the University of Georgia. He reports that, while Georgia was chartered first, UNC was the first to accept students and begin classes. William & Mary is older but was originally a private university.
• Dan suggested to Drew that he work with Newark City Directories for 1920 in his quest to locate his grandparents at that time.
• Karl followed up on our interview with Dr. John Philip Colletta, Ph.D., that was aired in February. Dr. Colletta discussed the use of "the Federal Cases" books for federal court research. Karl indicates that these books have been digitized and are available at the Internet Archive site at http://www.archive.org. He states that Volume 30 is the index, accessible at http://www.archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.fedcases.30_2. This will help you use Volumes 1-29.
• Clive asks for Drew's opinion about getting the most from a Y-chromosome DNA test, and whether he also needs results from the mtDNA test.
• Ann asks about viruses and phishing with the iPhone and iPad.
• Kay says hello and comments on how very much she enjoyed the FGS Conference in Knoxville. She is hooked and plans to attend other national conferences.
• Michael shares his method of storing information in the form of metadata with his JPEG images.
• Denis provided a link to the French version of Wikipedia for information about the town of La Clayette. (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Clayette)
• Jenna asks Drew about the iPad and whether Legacy or RootsMagic 4 can be run on that device. She also asks about Dropbox.
• Audrey Collins from The National Archives in the UK reports that she is enjoying her iPad and accesses books from Google Books and the Internet Archive, and that she uses the GoodReader app. She also enjoyed George's "Carolina French." She shared copies of French marriage documents in TNA's collection so that Drew can practice his French.
• Dan is using an iPad app called Traces of the Past, a genealogy app. Drew will check it out and report on his experience with it.

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the 2010 annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

The news includes:

• Announcements about the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, on August 18-21, 2010.
• ALERT: The IRS has reviewed non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporations and is planning to revoke non-profit status on October 15, 2010, for those that still have not complied with their reporting. Details can be found at http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=225889,00.html and The Guys strongly urge you to check your society's status on the respective state reports.
• The Guys provide an update about the situation on the Library of Michigan, both from Tom Koselka and from an article in Library Journal.
• Family Tree Magazine is hosting a Giveaway Sweepstakes at http://win.familytreemagazine.com through August 31, 2010. Enter the sweepstakes every day to win your choice of hundreds of genealogy books, CDs, and DVDs.

Drew reads a question from Jim about a French puzzle. Drew will respond on this after he has a chance to review the details.

The Guys discuss technology, including the iPhone and Drew's new iPad and a number of applications - apps at the iTunes store and on the Web:

• E-reader apps (at iTunes)
• Wikipanion (at iTunes)
• GoodReader (at iTunes)
• iSpeak (at iTunes) to translate languages
• Dropbox(on the Web at http://www.dropbox.com and a free app at iTunes)
• Evernote (on the Web at http://www.evernote.com and a free app at iTunes)
• Skype(on the Web at http://www.skype.com and a free app at iTunes)
• Google Docs (on the Web at http://www.google.com)

The news includes:

• Ancestry.com completes its acquisition of Sweden's Genline.se.
• Ancestry.com has added U.S. Revolutionary War pension and bounty-land warrant application files (1800-1900), U.S. County land Ownership Maps (1860-1918), and a broad collection of Canadian City and Area Directories (1819-1906)
• Tom Kosalka of the Michigan Genealogical Council reports that Gov. Jennifer Granholm has issued a press release concerning the genealogical and historical collections at the Michigan Library and Historical Center. The press release can be accessed at http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168--240954--,00.html.
• Arphax Publishing announces new paperback editions of its Family Maps and Texas Land Survey Maps series. Visit their website at www.arphax.com.
• Findmypast.co.uk announced fully indexed U.K. and Wales birth records (1837-2006) at their site.
• The Newberry Library in Chicago has recently completed a new, free online resource, the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. The database covers every day-to-day change in county boundaries - from 1634 to 2000. You can access this tremendous resource at publications.newberry.org/ahcbp. 
• Archives.com (http://www.archives.com) has just turned one year old and urges our listeners to visit their site and enjoy a 7-day free trial.

The guys discuss their upcoming travel plans:

• George will be speaking at the Midwestern Roots Family History and Genealogy Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 6 & 7, 2010, at a pre-conference session on August 5th. Learn more at http://www.indianahistory.org/our-services/family-history/midwesternroots/midwestern-roots.
• Drew will be in Göteborg, Sweden the week of August 9th to present a paper at the 2010 IFLA World Library and Information Congress.
• George and Drew will be in Knoxville, Tennessee from August 16-21, 2010, for the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference. You can still register at http://fgs.org/2010conference/registration, and you can learn everything you need to know before you attend the conference at the FGS Conference Blog at http://www.fgsconferenceblog.org.

Listener email includes:

• Kim asks about how to determine if a specific genealogical researcher is legitimate or not.
• Ed responds to Jennifer's court record question. He recommends two online resources for California genealogical research: SFgenealogy.com and the "Early California Population Project" at the Huntington Library and is accessible at http://www.huntington.org/information/ECPPlogin.htm.
• Mike offers a compelling reason for sharing your genealogy information on the Internet.
• Russ asks for suggestions on how to flatten folded documents while using a digital camera.
• James asks for information about how to download our podcasts.
• Spencer has created a new app for the iPhone/iPod called Research Logger and is asking for feedback. Visit http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/research-logger/id379266906 for more information.
• Gus shares the story of how he sent out letters in 1995 seeking information about his DeNoble line research, and how a response was just received.
• Melanie asks for help with her "multiple-choice grandfather."
• Pat responds to Jennifer's legal case transcripts research. She offers four very important suggestions. (You must listen to these!)
• Bill shares a story about a "misplaced birthplace" in Canada for his father.
• Lynda is seeking guidance for locating ancestors in Denmark and Germany.

 

 

The news includes:

• FamilySearch has announced the addition of another 26 million new names.
• The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will celebrate Independence Day on Sunday, July 4th, with its annual ceremony, its first ever National Independence Day Parade float, and a brand new logo.
• EasyNetSites (http://easynetsites.com) announces the availability of its products to create a customized website for genealogical societies, individuals, and small businesses. You don't need to know anything about HTML, XHTML, or other programming languages in order to use it.

Listener email includes:

• Drew reads an item sent to him in French (and realizes after the podcast that the unusual word was actually a proper name!).
• Mike thanks Deborah effusively for her great help in opening up new research avenues for him!
• Clive asks for advice about DNA tests in the UK.
• Carla asks about her Afican-American and American Indian ancestry, and DNA results that suggest Ukranian ancestry.
• Steve and Patrice both wrote in to Drew to suggest the use of Newark, New Jersey, city directories for locating his Smith ancestors. Steve suggests the directories at Footnote.com and Patrice recommends working with the Newark Public Library.
• Louis Kessler is suggesting a new Genealogy Software and Internet site for users to handle FAQs. It needs 60 followers to make it permanent. Visit the site at http://tinyurl.com/LKessler.
• Try out a computational search engine at WolframAlpha.
• Network World published an article about the digital preservation of the WWII Enigma messages. See the full article at:
  • http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/060510-archive-project-will-digitize-wwii.html
• Tim wrote to report that he has received court transcripts from NARA of a federal court case in 1895 for his great-uncle.
• Tina addresses the issue of Ancestry.co.uk's high prices to order BMD records from the General Register Office (GRO) for you.
• Melanie asks about the correct way of recording events.

George and Drew discuss three books:

• Abstracts of the Testamentary Proceedings of the Prerogative Court of Maryland: Volume XXIV: 1744-1746, compiled by V. L. Skinner, Jr. (Clearfield Company/Genealogical Publishing Co.)
• The First Parish Register of Belize 1794-1810 and the First Four Censuses 1816-1826, compiled by Sonia Bennett Murray (Clearfield Company/Genealogical Publishing Co.)
• Who Do You Think You Are? by Megan Smolynak Smolenyak (Viking)

Our listener email includes:

• Mitch recently discovered a great video, Ken Burns' Horatio's Drive. He also wants to know if other listeners know of other movies or documentaries that are historically educational.
• Jennifer is seeking court transcripts of a murder trial in Harford County, Maryland, and a federal trial in the Baltimore Circuit Court in 1922-1923.
• Gary asked for information about census enumerators' instructions for listing names on censuses. George points to the Minnesota Population Center's IPUMS site at http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumInstr.shtml for 1850 to 1950 instructions. He also asks for information about the availability of census Enumeration District maps.
• Jeff asks for advice about how to handle birth date discrepancies where the Kentucky records list one date and family tradition insists it is another date.
• Richard has started his first blog at http://yehlegenealogy.blogspot.com, and he has posted some photos and postcard images from La Plata, Argentina. He hopes people will see his blog and recognize locations and people shown.
• Gus asked for guidance about the dictionary of first names that Drew spoke about in a previous episode. The book is the New American Dictionary of First Names. Please see last week's show notes for title and author details.
• Judy responds to Drew's challenge to locate Chambers Street in the 1920 census. She also suggests that Drew check the WWI Draft Registration cards for his William H. Smith. (He did after the podcast and found some good information.)
• Helen Shaw has published an article about the Maine Legislature's actions concerning limiting access to that state's vital records. Check this link.
• Chris asks for advice about how common are name spelling and birth/death date errors from the 1800s and early 1900s.
• Marily asks for help with tracing her great-great-grandfather who died in the Civil War.
• Tim is seeking details on his great-grandfather who was orphaned in Oklahoma. He has located Dawes papers and wants suggestions on how to continue.

George reviews several books this week:

• Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case by Christine Rose
• Scots-Irish Links - Part Eight by David Dobson
• Chickasaw by Blood Enrollment Cards, 1898-1914 - Volume III - transcribed by Jeff Bowen
• The Surnames of North West Ireland: Concise Histories of the Major Surnames of Gaelic and Planter Origin by Brian Mitchell
• Defenders of the Plantation of Ulster, 1641-1691, compiled by Brian Mitchell

The news includes:

• The British Library has announced plans to digitize millions of historical newspaper pages in partnership with brightsolid.com.
• The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) has announced that it has more than 2,000 members.
• The Michigan eLibrary (MeL) has  announced the lauch of Michigana, Sources in U.S. History Online. It can be accessed at http://mel.org/michigana.
• The Digital Library of Georgia and the Cuba Archives of the Breman Museum have announced the expansion of the Southern Israelite Archive at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/MediaTypes/Newspapers.html. 
• GenSoftReviews announces that it now has reviews of more than 500 genealogical software programs at its site.
• The Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) will hold its annual Fall Seminar on Saturday, September 18, 2010, and the speaker will be Curt B. Witcher, the manager of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. More information will be available at the society's website at http://fgs.org. 
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced the extension of its Early Bird registration for its 2010 FGS Conference on August 18-21, 2010, in Knoxville, Tennessee. The date has been extended to June 21, 2010. Complete details and online registration can be found at http://fgs.org/2010conference. 

Our listener email includes:

• Jennifer asks about mentors for her work in becoming a Certified Genealogist. George points her to the Board for Certification of Genealogists.
• Steve discusses his great-grandfather's birth records, and he asks about how to best borrow microfilmed records from Augusta County, Virginia - through the Library of Virginia or through the local LDS Family History Center.
• Teri discusses the impportance of source citations.
• Drew discusses the derivation and meaning of first names, and cites a book, The New American Dictionary of First Names, by Leslie Dunkling and William Gosling.
• Pat shares an important collection of New York State digitized historic newspapers at http://www.fultonhistory.com.
• Michael asks about The Guys' use of DNA in research. He also asks for tips for first-time conference attendees. George points him to a webinar he did for the Southern California Genealogical Society titled, "How to Get the Most out of a Genealogy Conference." The webinar can be seen at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/RootsTV.htm.
• Tammy asks about the key database collections at Footnote.com.

 

The Guys discuss their recent trips, including a great visit to Salt Lake City for the NGS Conference.

This week's news includes:

• Ancestry.com made several announcements at the NGS Conference:

1. A new search engine facility allows for better searching, including wildcard search at the beginning of names and the ability to drill down to all database results for a specific area.
2. A new wiki at Ancestry.com includes all of their two great books, The Source and Ancestry's Red Book, and will allow continuous additions and updates.
3. Ancestry.com announced a new version of its Family Tree Maker coming later this year for the Macintosh.

• FamilySearch.org announced the addition of 300 million new names to its site.
• Randy Riley, the Special Collections Manager at the Library of Michigan, received the prestigious Filby Award for Genealogy Librarianship at the NGS Conference on 30 April 2010. Congratulations, Randy!

George discusses his meeting at NGS with Gary Gibb and Chad Milliner of Ancestry.com to discuss problems with the new images for the 1860 U.S. federal censuses at their site. George explains the cause and that Gary is evaluating possible corrective actions.

Listener email includes:

• Barbara discusses her findings that some census pages are imaged two to a page and that "missing" families may be further down the screen. Drew comments that missed areas can often be found at the end of an enumeration district's census pages.
• Kaye has heard George on both this podcast and the Genealogy Gems Podcast. She also asks George about family Bibles for the Alexander families of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, from which they are both descended.
• Claire is a relatively new listener and only 25 years old. She is working as a probate genealogist for International Missing Heir Finders and is studying to become a Certified Genealogist.
• George shares that there are videos at YouTube of early San Francisco. One shows the city prior to the 1906 earthquake at http://tinyurl.com/SF1905-1905A and another shows the damage after the earthquake at http://tinyurl.com/2a7q55p.
• James asks for an explanation of dower rights with regard to U.S. land transactions. He also asks for suggestions for how to determine the right "Edith" in his English research.
• Dave shares the fact that he discovered in the 1930 U.S. census that his grandparents were neighbors. He also asks for advice about recording of place names listed in census records.
• Margaret in Dublin, Ireland, offers details for Cheryl regarding her County Tyrone ancestor.
• Angie provides an update on her problem with her Samuel Chambers/Hilderbrand.

The Guys discuss their upcoming conference activities. George heartily recommends attendance at the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree on 11-13 June 2010 in Burbank. He also encourages you to watch the webinar he did for the SCGS titled "Getting the Most out of a Genealogy Conference" at their website and at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/RootsTV.htm.

Drew discusses his newest toy - an Apple iPad.

This week's news includes:

• The Governor of Maine has signed a bill limiting access to Maine's vital records until the passage of 100 years.
• Family Forest is expanding its collection of eBooks.
• RootsMagic has released a minor update to RootsMagic 4.
• The Digital Library of Georgia has released new historic Atlanta newspapers at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/atlnewspapers.
• The 13th Annual Conference on Computerized Genealogy and Family History, traditionally held at Brigham Young University in Provo in March, will take place at the Salt Palace on April 26 and 27, immediately followed by the four-day Annual Conference (April 28-May 1) of the National Genealogical Society, also at the Salt Palace.
• Godfrey Memorial Library Board of Trustees member Ed Laput has completed photographing his 100th cemetery and has submitted his work to the library.
• The Guys provide an update on the Library of Michigan crisis.
• George conducted a webinar for the Southern California Genealogical Society titled "Getting the Most from a Genealogy Conference," and it can be viewed online at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/RootsTV.htm.
• Gale has published a new collection of 300 years of U.K. newspapers, the 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers and 19th Century British Library Newspapers.
• Leonardtown, MD. is sponsoring the Maryland to Kentucky Reunion 2010 in July 16 -18th. Check at http://mdtokyreunion.club.officelive.com for more information and registration.
• Rodney has set up a self-updating page of links that The Guys have cited in the podcasts. Check it out at http://vc.id.au/gg/gglinks.html.

Phil Wright is looking for feedback on a potential new online genealogy service. You can respond to him at phil.wright@familytreeonline.com.

This week's listener email includes:

• Mike is upset by another genealogist who took and published his family tree data at Ancestry.com.
• Kay wrote to indicate that there are more states in Ancestry.com's 1860 enhanced census images that have problems.
• Rich asked for suggestions about locating information about his 4th great-grandfather and pauper graves.
• Jamie asks about the safety and security of having the society participate in social networking sites such as Facebook.
• Michael is interested in researching his estranged father's family before making contact with him and his paternal grandmother. Drew suggests using Veromi.net to begin some public records searches.
• Kathy asks about the permissions to sail/emigrate from England.

 

In response to Beverly's inquiry about options for genealogy home study courses, George compiled the following list:

 

National Genealogical Society: Home Study Course

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/homestudy_course_cd

 

Family Tree University

http://www.familytreeuniversity.com

 

National Institute for Genealogical Studies

http://www.genealogicalstudies.com

 

Boston University – Certificate in Genealogical Research

http://professional.bu.edu/cpe/Genealogy.asp

 

Brigham Young University – Independent Study (Free Courses)

http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/free.cfm

 

New England Historic Genealogical Society Online Seminars

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/events/online_seminars.asp

Drew issues his first research challenge: Find Drew's paternal grandparents (William Henry Smith, his wife Elizabeth, and their sons William, Charles, and George) in the 1920 census for northern New Jersey.

Our hosting service, Libsyn, may be experiencing some server issues, which is causing a problem with episode #200.  We'll update you as soon as we know that it has been resolved. 

UPDATE (March 31): Libsyn appears to have fixed their problem, and we're back in business with episode 200!

The 200th Episode!

The Guys are pleased to celebrate the 200th episode of the Genealogy Guys Podcast!

---

 

This week's news includes: Mail in your 2010 census forms; a brief discussion of the NBC series, Who Do You Think You Are?; RootsTelevision will remain in operation; library funding crises are spreading as the New Jersey State Library is threatened with a merger with Thomas Edison State College; the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County [NC] Library system's threatened 13-branch library closure announcement is mitigated by staffing and operation hours slashes; the Library of Michigan's collection will remain in one piece for now, but other changes are being discussed; a Massachusetts senate bill proposes closure to all that state's vital records created after 1841; Turner Publishing of Nashville, Tennessee, will take over all of Ancestry Publishing's brand and books, and will continue handling distribution and sales; The National Archives in the U.K. has announced that it will cease publication of its acclaimed genealogy magazine, Ancestors, and subscribers must contact the publisher, Wharncliffe Publishing, Ltd., concerning refunds.

George has been been contacted by Gary Gibb of Ancestry.com and Chad Milner concerning some quality problems with Ancestry's recent upgrade of census images. George discusses the 1861 censuses for three Ohio counties reported by Tina, and the intense attention being taken to address problems.

Jonathan Wiltman announces GenAnswers, a new site at www.genanswers.com, a new and free genealogy question and answer community.

Meg announces that her True Lover's Knot has been published as notecards by Etsy.com at www.hughpugh.etsy.com. 

This week's news includes:

• Sherry found a 1920 census form for her great-grandmother, Matilda (Tilda) Leafgreen on which the enumarator apparently noted in the left margin that this was the best information he was able to obtain.
• Cynthia has been searching her Powell family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in Delaware, and questions the user of her married vs. maiden name.
• Lisa tells us about the University of Washington's genealogy program, and you can learn more at http://tinyurl.com/UofWA-genealogy.
• Several listeners responded concerning the tab dividers for use with extra wide sheets and items inserted inside sheet protectors. (Avery #11903 - Big Tab Pocket Insertable Plastic Dividers)
• Erin recently completed a genealogy certificate program at Boston University. Learn more at professional.bu.edu/cpe/Genealogy.asp.
• Russ asks The Guys to discuss the pros and cons of filing by Couple vs. filing by Surname.
• Jamie discusses differences in Ancestry.com's old vs. new search facilities.
• Sheryl discusses her great-great-grandfather, Wiliam F. Nelson, and his immigration path.
• Mike thanks Drew for an excellent DNA presentation at the seminar in Jacksonville recently.
• Margaret has an ancestor born with surname Hopson, but the surname changed to Perriette and then back to Hopson. (Drew is investigating further on his own.)
• Linda has a number of observations and comments about source citations.
• Gus shares a news story about cemetery vandalism in the Kane Cemetery in the Bighorn Canyon Recreation Area in Montana. (Call (307) 548-5421 to report any information you might have about this case.)
• Carolyn asks for suggestions for locating and obtaining copies of obituaries from Glasgow, Scotland.

  Thank you, everyone, for listening and becoming part of our growing family!

George and Drew in front of a live audience on March 6, 2010 at the annual conference of the Santa Barbara County (California) Genealogical Society.

This episode features three interviews:

• an interview with Josh Taylor of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (yes, the same Josh Taylor who appeared with Sarah Jessica Parker in the first aired episode of Who Do You Think You Are?)
• an interview with Curt Witcher, Manager of the Genealogy Center of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana
• an interview with Lee and Carol Cole, who manage a community project in Ohio (details at tpsurvey.org)  [Note: At one point in the interview, Carol refers to the Terrace Park Historical Society, but she realized after the interview that she intended to refer to the Terrace Park Woman's Club.]

George and Drew also discuss their recent trip to Santa Barbara County, California, including a tour of the library of the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society. (The next episode, #199, will be a podcast recorded in front of the audience in Santa Barbara County.)

Finally, listeners learn how they can become part of the upcoming 200th episode of the Genealogy Guys Podcast!

George and Drew set sail on the second-largest cruise ship in the world, Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas, and record a podcast episode in front of a live audience participating in the RootsMagic 2010 genealogy cruise.  (Note: The correct URL for FreeBMD should be www.freebmd.org.uk.)

In this episode:

• George notes that it is Black History Month, and points out that the New England Historic Genealogical Society has a website called AfricanAmericanAncestors.org.
• George shares the information that MyHeritage.com has acquired the Germany-based OSN Group, which includes such family sites as Verwandt.de, Moikrewni.pl, and Dynastree.com.
• The Michigan Genealogical Council updates the Guys on the Michigan governor's appointments to the Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention Board (which will advise the governor regarding the Michigan Library and Historical Center).
• Beverly asks about options for genealogy home-study courses.
• Teri asks where to get tabbed dividers for full-page sheet protectors, and whether it's ok to bring up a topic that was previously discussed on a Genealogy Guys Podcast from some time ago.  (For the tabbed dividers, George suggests looking at Light Impressions.)
• Mitchell asks how best to document variants in surnames in his genealogy software.
• Tina asks about unreadable census images from the 1860 census on Ancestry.com.
• Steve e-mails from Australia using his iPhone to ask the Guys about dealing with some other genealogists who seem undaunted in spreading bad information.
• Brent asks about finding information for a death at sea.
• Tom and Mitch continue the discussion about providing sources for genealogical information.  Mitch also shares an article written by Gary B. Hoffman that dealt with the subject of bad information found in online genealogies.
• Jim discusses his frustrations in locating information about ancestor David Barnhart.
• Drew interviews Dr. John Philip Colletta and learns a great deal about Federal court records.

This week's news includes:

• Ancestry.com has announced Ancestry.com Tree to Go, a new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows users to access and update their family tree at Ancestry.com anywhere. The app is available at the iTunes Store.
• Apple has announced their latest product, the iPad. The Guys discuss some of the features and the pricing of this new item.
• George announces his next speaking gigs: he will be at the Palm Beach County Genealogical Society on Saturday, January 30th, and at the Highlands County Genealogical Society on Saturday, February 6th. You can learn more at http://ahaseminars.com/events.php.

This week's listener email includes:

• Hollen provides another suggestion about searching the Gorrell family for Pam.
• Lee tells us that Ancestry.com has a great database called Ohio Obituary Index, 1820s-2009, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. There is even a link on the database page that allows you to order a copy of the obituary.
• Marie thanks The Guys, Lisa Louise Cook of The Genealogy Gems Podcast, and Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers for encouraging her to re-start her blog and keep it going. Congratulations, Marie!
• Gus discusses source citations on the reverse of his family history posters. He also reminds us that the Allen County Public Library is still accepting unbound and PDF files of books. ACPL will make and send you a bound photocopy and keep one for their collection. Send to:  Steve Myers, Asst. Manager, Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library, P. O. Box 2270, 900 Library Plaza, Fort Wayne, IN 46801
• A.C. is interested in more information about Phoebe's Cousin Camp.

George does a review of a new book, "Wanted! U.S. Criminal Records, Sources & Research Methodology" by author Ron Arons. The book is published by Criminal Research Press and retails for $49.99. The book is a compendium of a wide variety of criminal records and where the records can be located. Learn more at http://www.ronarons.com.

George discusses his exciting finds concerning his paternal grandmother, her first marriage, her second marriage to his grandfather, and some very surprising connections that he has uncovered. Drew joins in the discussion because he, too, helped with the puzzle.

The Guys have been traveling the last two weeks, but here's a new episode for everyone!

This week's news includes:

1. Ancestry.com announced that it is discontinuing publication of Ancestry Magazine, effective with the March/April 2010 issue.
2. There are three new genealogy series debuting on television: "Who Do You Think You Are?" makes its debut on NBC on March 5, 2010; "Faces of America," hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., airs on Wednesdays, February 10 to March 3, 2010, on PBS (check your local listings); and "The Generations Project" has debuted on BYU Television (check your local area for availability and telecast schedules).
3. Registration is now open for the Southern California Genealogical Society's 41st Annual Jamboree, to be held at Burbank, California, on June 11-13, 2010. Visit their Jamboree website for details and to register at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/2010jam-home.htm.
4. The Maryland Historical Society has announced that it is accepting applications for its Lord Baltimore Research Fellowships for 2010-2011. Contact Patricia Anderson at panderson@mdhs.org for more information about this announcement; contact the Library at library_department@mdhs.org for information about library-related fellowships; and contact Alexandria Deutsch, Chief Curator, at adeutsch@mdhs.org for information about museum-related fellowships.
5. Ancestry.com has announced the launch of its 1950 Census Substitute.
6. Ancestry.com and the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) are sponsoring a Family History Day 2010 on Saturday, February 20, 2010, from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts.
7. The Genealogy Gems Podcast has launched the first genealogy podcast app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, available in the iTunes Store for $2.99.

This week's listener email includes:

1. Beth thanks The Guys for help last fall with obtaining information about photos taken during WWII of her grandfather's B-17 crew mates. She also discusses how she worked very, very hard on her book to include source citations for every comment, etc., that she received while writing the book.
2. Pattie talks about how great RootsMagic is for generating a basic book that she can edit, add to, and customize for her own family history writing.
3. Brenda responds to Katie's e-mail (1/3/10 episode) concerning the Huntingdon Gazette in Pennsylvania. She reports that there is a website, "Access Pennsylvania Digital Repository," at http://www.accesspadigital.org at which she was able to access early copies of the Huntingdon Gazette in the Juniata College Collections. She even located an April 1816 issue describing the sheriff's sale of her 4th great-grandfather's blacksmith shop in Barre Township. 
4. Pam asks for suggestions for additional research into her Gorrell ancestors.
5. Joel Weintraub corrects The Guys (George) concerning obtaining information from not-yet-released U.S. federal census records. He cites the Census Bureau as the correct place to contact (not NARA) for an Age Search to be performed. The price is $65, and the process and requirements are described at http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/agesearch/. 
6. Sheryl tells The Guys that the Mesa Arizona Regional Family History Center (http://www.mesarfhc.org/) does maintain a catalog of the microfilm and microfiche in their facility for search.

Drew discusses his trip to the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. He was given an in-depth tour of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) facility by Josh Taylor, the Director of Education and Programs. Drew describes some of the features of NEHGS.

George and Drew discuss their trip earlier this month to Salt Lake City and the research work they did on-site in the Family History Library. They each discuss the types of records they researched on microfilm, including probate indexes, probate files, grantor and grantee indexes to deed books, and other materials. George describes the process for having requested microfilm from the Granite Mountain vault.

Drew recounts a recent discussion on the ROOTS-L mailing list. He discusses "name chasers" who collect and add names to their databases without performing research to check sources. They also eschew entering any source citations for their collections. Some have even attacked Drew's position on the importance of source citations, stating that citing sources takes the fun out of genealogy. The Guys talk about how important and integral source citations are in everyone's research.

This week's news includes:

1. GenSoftReviews.com presents one of its 2009 Users Choice Awards to RootsMagic.
2. PBS debuts its new genealogy show, "Faces of America," on February 10, 2010, hosted by Harvard scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
3. ScotlandsPeople announces new images of the Statutory Registers for Births (1909), Marriages (1934), and Deaths (1959) at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. 
4. The Iowa Genealogical Society Library suffered damage last week when part of its roof collapsed as a result of snow and rain.
5. The Bartholomew County Historical Society in Columbus, Indiana, estimates a loss of as many as 75,000 items in a fire that destroyed the United Way building in which part of its collection was housed.
6. The Allen County Public Library has a new blog and a page on Facebook!

This week's listener email includes:

1. Michelle asks whether there is a search facility of the LDS Family History Library that allows people to determine what Family History Center(s) have a specific microfilm available for viewing.
2. Pamela asks about the origin of the forename "Green Berry."
3. Scott joins the ranks of The Genealogy Guys Podcast fans who have listened to every episode.
4. Katie is researching her McCahan line and discusses that, and she follows up on our discussion of business records by sharing a link to the "Business Archives Scotland" blog (see http://tinyurl.com/ScotlandBusArch).
   
5. Lee explored the Google Archives in search of an obituary in the St. Petersburg Times for his Great Aunt Gertrude Mitzner; and he asks about the availability of single census record information from post-1930 U.S. federal censuses.
6. Margaret asks for suggestions about her research in the Philadelphia area into the Rimbey family.
7. Linda has hit a brick wall with her great-grandparents' burial location in California and asks for suggestions.
8. The Missouri State Genealogical Society is trying to contact authors of articles for the Missouri State Genealogical Association Quarterly Journal. Many have already generously given permission to allow the society to place Journal articles online, but the organization is seeking to find other authors to gain their permission.

George discusses his project over the holidays to work through his unfiled genealogical materials. He describes the process and what he has done in data entry, obtaining digital images, adding source citations, and more in order to prepare for filing all these items.

The Guys are headed to Salt Lake City this coming weekend for the annual Winter Retreat which coincides with the Salt Lake Institute classes. Following that, Drew is headed to Boston for the American Library Association's Midwinter Conference.

George will be at the following locations giving presentations:

January 16th - Sarasota Genealogical Society
January 30th - Palm Beach County Genealogical Society
February 6th - Highlands County [FL] Genealogical Society

Drew will be at the Englewood Genealogical Society of Florida on January 27th.

He and Drew will both be sailing and presenting on the RootsMagic Valentine's Day Cruise to the Western Caribbean.

Stop by and see us!

This week's news includes:

1. Ancestry.com has released enhanced digital images of the U.S. federal censuses.
2. The Library of Michigan crisis continues with a smaller budget, effectively coming out of the collection development budget, and an anticipated 20% budget cut in 2010-2011.
3. The national Archives (TNA) of the UK has unveiled a new look and new address for its online educational services at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education. There are more materials there, plus podcasts and booking access to videoconferences and virtual classes.
4. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has uploaded the Ulster Street Directories (1819-1900) at http://www.proni.gov.uk.
5. The Irish Family History Foundation has released parish and statutory records transcriptions for County Londonderry at http://derry.brsgenealogy.com. 
6. Ancestral Atlas has released a collection of Irish Townland Maps at http://www.ancestralatlas.com. 

Be sure to back up your genealogy data and insure that a copy is located outside your home!

This week's listener email includes:

1. Eiya asks about good books covering African-American genealogical research. The Guys suggest Black Roots: A Beginner's Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree by Tony Burroughs and A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your African-American Ancestors by Franklin Carter Smith and Emily Ann Croom.
2. Lois suggests a podcast about the Orphan Train and the Catholic version of this at the "Catholic Under the Hood" site at http://sqpn.com/category/educational/catholic-under-the-hood/. Look for episode #209.
3. Lee reminds listeners that they can order copies of original Social Security Applications, Form SS-5, from the Social Security Administration at https://secure.ssa.gov/apps9/eFOIA-FEWeb/internet/main.jsp. You can also use the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) at RootsWeb (http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com) and generate a letter. (Listen to the podcast for details.)
4. Michael asks about the employer number on his great-great-grandfather's SS-5 -- W.P.A. O.P. 65-44-1163 -- and where he might learn what WPA projects on which his ancestor worked. He also asks about the U.S. Employment Service (USES) and what information might be on the registration card.
5. Blaise has switched to GRAMPS, an open source genealogy program at http://www.gramps-project.org. Blaise is using a portable version of it. (See http://tinyurl.com/GRAMPS-Portable.)
6. Richard asks for suggestions for tracing two brothers who may have been adopted in California between 1920 and 1930.
7. Gus shares information about "UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and research associate Dean Goodman who have won the Governor's Historic Preservation Award for high-tech mapping efforts at the Marquez Family Cemetery in Santa Monica Canyon" in California.
8. Barb shares information for Angie (episode #188) about locating and obtaining copies of Civil War pension files. She recounts a very convoluted research scenario involving three husbands, bigamy, and more.

Drew discusses Google Wave, a new facility in beta test mode.

The Guys published a new podcast dated December 7, 2009. However, one of our listeners reported a problem with the repetition of material following the first commercial break. This is the second time this has occurred. We rechecked the file and verified the problem. We believe it is a software problem with GarageBand, the software we use to record and process the podcasts. We believe that the "mix down" process that occurs after the editing of the podcast, and what actually produces the MP3 file, has a bug in it.

We are searching for details about this problem. However, in the meantime, we remixed the file, created a new one, and uploaded/published the podcast again.

The new, corrected file was republished this evening (12/10/09). If you want to obtain the corrected file, please visit The Genealogy Guys Podcast website at http://genealogyguys.com and open or download the new file.

Sorry for the problem, but we're on it!

This week's news includes:

1. Footnote.com has made available the first-ever interactive collection of World War II documents, including the memorial of the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The collection is free to access through the month of December.
2. The National Genealogical Society (NGS) has announced details of the Librarians' Day at its annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, in April. This pre-conference program is sponsored by ProQuest. Details are available at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/preconference_events.
3. ProQuest and NGS will honor an outstanding librarian at the same conference by awarding the Filby Award for Genealogical Librarianship. Learn more at http://tinyurl.com/ykvrw3g.

This week's listener email includes:

1. Sharon reminds us that the search for immigrant ancestors must include looking at both ends of the journey. While an arrival record of someone from the U.K. in 1925 shows only a destination, the departure record in the U.K. may show the traveler's home address. U.K. migration records can be found at http://www.findmypast.com.
   
2. Tina corrects our statements in episode #189. FreeBMD.org.uk does not yet include all the civil registration index entries. In addition, civil registration in England and Wales began on 1 July 1837 and not 1838.
3. Steve is seeking clues about a grandfather who divorced his first wife and remarried, apparently taking the second wife's surname.
4. Victoria shared information about the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, one of only two remaining, fully functional Liberty Ships built and launched during World War II. The ship has been restored and is anchored at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, open to the public. Learn more at http://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org. 
5. Gus asks for advice about citing sources on genealogical posters he has created of his family lineage.
6. Nancy asks about George's book, The Official Guide to Ancestry.com, and how current the book remains.
7. Larry asks about using a DNA test as it applies to establishing lineages for immigrants.
8. Rich shares a newspaper story about the Texas state government taking blood samples of newborn infants for testing purposes, and then retaining the samples for other experiments. This has resulted in lawsuits by parents/families and concerns about privacy. See more at http://tinyurl.com/DNA4TX-Infants.
9. R.J. advises us of another product that allows Mac users to run Windows on their Macintosh, Linux, and OpenSolaris machines. It is called VirtualBox, manufactured by Sun Microsystems, and can be found at http://www.virtualbox.org. 
10. Terri has purchased RootsMagic 4 and Family Tree Maker 2010. When she migrated her data from Brother's Keeper software, she lost information on all her living relatives. Drew offers a suggestion to check.
11. Lisa asks about genealogy software available for her iPhone 3GS.
12. Gus has been watching The Genealogy Guys Videocasts at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv and finds that the most recent way that George has labeled/titled the files makes the content easier to find and differentiate.
13. Marie asked where at RootsWeb she could find Gary's transcribed index of "Memoirs of the Miami Valley". Drew located the index and emailed Marie with the URL at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohbutler/memoirs.
    

News from Ancestry.com includes more records, such as U.S. Navy records, improved 1850 U.S. census images, Atlanta federal penitentiary records, more historical postcards, Bavaria muster rolls, and other new records from Ireland, Australia, and Paris.  Footnote.com has added more Native American records.  RootsMagic has updated its website and has released RootsMagic Essentials, a free version of the RootsMagic software.  The DAR has made an online database of many of its genealogy records available to the general public.

Listener e-mail involves a question about the link to New York government divisions (turns out it's on Wikipedia); the correct pronunciation of Islip, NY (which Drew did correct in the show notes from the episode in which he mispronounced it) and another NY town; the Federation of Genealogical Societies 2010 conference in Knoxville, Tennessee; volunteering to provide free online access to records, especially local historical records; volunteering to provide genealogy classes at the local public library; online Navy records and other military records; issues related to using Facebook, Genealogy Wise, and the Genealogy Guys videos on Blip.tv; citing census records; running Windows programs on a Macintosh; and researching Smiths in England.  

Drew shares his first experiences with Google's latest online service, Google Wave.

This podcast episode was recorded "live" at the Western Michigan Genealogical Society's conference in Grand Rapids on Saturday, November 7, 2009. We had a fabulous time with the society and its members!

The Guys have THREE new videocast interviews for your viewing pleasure. Drew interviews: Craig Manson, author of GeneaBlogie; Dick Eastman of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter; and Leo Myers and Paula Hinkel, co-organizers of the Southern California Genealogical Society's annual conference called JAMBOREE. Check them all out at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv!

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com expects to raise $100 million in its IPO; the Kansas African American Museum in Wichita has received a $25,000 grant to establish a statewide program called "Knowing Me, Knowing You"; Footnote.com has announced its plan to create the complete Interactive U.S. Census; and the "Who Do You Think You Are LIVE" show will be held in Olympia, London, on 26-28 February 2010, sponsored by Ancestry.co.uk.

The Guys will be at the Western Michigan Genealogical Society's Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 6 November 2009. Details are available at http://gotancestors.com. The Guys will also be at the Florida State Genealogical Society's Conference in Melbourne, Florida, on 13-14 November 2009. Details are available at http://flsgs.org.

George thanks Teresa Remsberg for providing a link to the Canadian Border Crossings database at Ancestry.com where a record of his great-uncle, Brisco Washington Holder, showed he arrived in 1919.

Mary responded to Pat's concerns in podcast episode #186 about birth certificate copies being issued with a different place of birth (Drew realizes after the podcast that he mispronounced "Islip" several times); Victoria asks about Post-Em notes on Ancestry.com family trees; Mark shares information about articles of genealogical interest:

1. Kentucky's last Civil War daughter at http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/805969.html
2. Death of the last Civil War widow at http://tinyurl.com/CW-widow
3. Smithsonian Magazine published an article about the last U.S. WWI solder at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/last-doughboy.html
4. European legal challenges to Google Books at http://tinyurl.com/GoogleBookEU
5. An article about the original Star Spangled Banner back on display at http://tinyurl.com/ybbo47q

Mark also shares information about employment records; Eric talks about George's and Drew's books, and chuckles over The Guys' botching the pronunciation of place names; Daniel asks about the Ball family; Michelle talks about presenting classes in her genealogy society and the joys of belonging to her society; Tim reminds The Guys of the "Tip of the Iceberg" poster published and for sale by the California Genealogical Society and Library (See http://preview.tinyurl.com/IceburgPoster1 and http://preview.tinyurl.com/IceburgPoster2); John asks about George's relative, John Allen Morgan; Angie poses her quandary of a polygamous great-great-grandfather who changed names and her difficulties locating his Civil War pension (See http://preview.tinyurl.com/AngiesGGGF from the Journal of Social History in which Angie's ancestor is discussed); and Roger tells us how he organizes and files his genealogical materials.

The Genealogy Guys have published three new videocasts at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv this week. They include interviews with:

1. Suzanne Russo Adams of Ancestry.com, Italian genealogy researcher, and author
2. Steve Danko, Polish genealogy researcher and blogger
3. Bruce Buzbee, president of RootsMagic
   

SURPRISE! A second new videocast, an interview with Maureen Taylor (The Photo Detective), is also now available at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv.

Join Drew as he interviews Lisa Louise Cooke, host of The Genealogy Gems Podcast, in a new episode of The Genealogy Guys Videocast at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv.

This week's news includes: The National Army Museum (UK) has launched an exhibition called First Shots: Early War Photography 1848-1860. It includes some of the earliest war photographs in existence, and the online version of the exhibition can be viewed at http://www.national-army-museum.ac.uk/pages/firstShots/. The Vision of Britain website has a new set of digitized maps for England, Scotland, and Wales going back to the early 1800s at http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/.

George has been elected to the position of Vice President of Membership Services of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, effective 1 January 2010.

George describes a beautiful poster that Gus Marsh has sent to illustrate work with Adobe In-Design. Gus also asks about two individuals buried in Pinellas County in Florida.

The Guys report on the status of the Library of Michigan funding crisis and the threat of breaking up its excellent historical and genealogical collection.

George will be in Louisville, KY, this Saturday for an all-day seminar (details at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kylgs/seminar2.html).

George and Drew will be at the Western Michigan Genealogical Society (http://www.wmgs.org) in Grand Rapids, MI, on Friday and Saturday, November 6th and 7th. The society is celebrating its 55th anniversary with a banquet on Friday evening, and an all-day seminar on Saturday, titled Got Ancestors?! Guydes to Genealogical Research. Details are available at http://gotancestors.com. The day's festivities will conclude with The Genealogy Guys LIVE!, a live recording session of the podcast with questions and answers.

The Guys present two final interviews from the SCGS Jamboree in Burbank. Drew first interviews Suzanne Russo Adams of Ancestry.com and the author of Finding Your Italian Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide. He then interviews Paula Hinkel and Leo Myers, the planning and organizing force behind Jamboree.

This week's listener email includes: Teri has downloaded all the podcasts and listens while swimming; Peter asks Drew about researching his slave ancestors in Newberry, SC, Drew's hometown; Amy discusses the use of newspapers and newsletters for company employees.

The Podcast has been nominated by Family Tree Magazine's Top 40 Genealogy Blogs in the HOW-TO Category. Please cast your vote for us at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/40BestVoting.

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This week's news includes: Ancestry.com will present a free online presentation on Wednesday, October 14, 2009, at 8:00 PM Eastern Time titled "Learn the Best Strategies for Searching Ancestry.com" - and you can register at http://learn.ancestry.com/LearnMore/Webinars.aspx; Ancestry.com also announced that they have expanded their agreement with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to scan and index documents there, and have therefore opened a new scanning facility in the Washington, DC, area - new content collections from this new facility are discussed in this episode; UK Minister Ed Miliband, visiting Moscow on official business and appearing on a call-in radio program, received a call from a relative. You can read the BBC news story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8295394.stm. The City of Kennesaw, Georgia, received a grant that enabled them to begin underground imaging of their cemetery, and you can read all about it at http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/etd/2/.

Note: Another update on the Library of Michigan crisis will be provided next week.

Maureen A. Taylor, well known as The Photo Detective, has just published a new book, Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900. It can help you date those mystery photos you have. The book is available at http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/fashionable-folks-hair/7559085.

The Guys have a busy speaking schedule coming up! Drew will speak about DNA on Sunday, October 11th, for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Tampa Bay (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fljgstb).

George will be presenting at an all-day conference for the Louisville Genealogical Society (details at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kylgs/seminar2.html) in Louisville, KY, on Saturday, October 17th.

And George AND Drew will be speaking for the Western Michigan Genealogical Society (http://www.wmgs.org) in Grand Rapids, MI, on Friday and Saturday, November 6th and 7th. The society is celebrating its 55th anniversary with a banquet on Friday evening, and an all-day seminar on Saturday, titled Got Ancestors?! Guydes to Genealogical Research. Details are available at http://gotancestors.com. The day's festivities will conclude with The Genealogy Guys LIVE!, a live recording session of the podcast with questions and answers.

Drew interviews Dick Eastman, author of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (http://blog.eogn.com). Dick will be appearing for the Pinellas Genealogy Society in Largo, Florida, Saturday, February 13, 2010.

The listener email includes: Carolyn raves about how much she likes RootsMagic software; Lee continues discussing wives' maiden names on gravestones; Roger tells us that the Scottish practice of using maiden names of married women in birth entries in parish registers and on gravestones. Roger shares two examples:

http://roger.lisaandroger.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=81 shows a parish register; examples of headstones appear at http://roger.lisaandroger.com/browsemedia.php?mediatypeID=headstones.

Pat shares concerns about official, raised seal birth certificates from New York that are using different birth locations now rather than the actual (and original) locations. TC shares information about Dropbox software, a free tool to help keep data on multiple computers in synch. It is available at http://www.getdropbox.com and is free.

George talks about Internet Genealogy magazine from Moorshead Publications, the last magazine covering Internet research topics. (Visit http://www.internet-genealogy.com for more information and to subscribe.) Katie asks for guidance for using pre-1850 U.S. federal censuses and getting past some roadblocks created because only the head of household was listed, followed with tick marks representing gender, age, and race.

This week's news includes: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Footnote.com announce a new Digital Holocaust Collection at Footnote.com at http://www.footnote.com/holocaust, and will be accessible for free through October; Gale and the British Library have made a vast collection of "British Newspapers, 1800-1900" available online at http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs - searches are free and downloads of full-text articles are available by purchasing either a 24-hour or 7-day pass; WorldVitalRecords.com announced that it has lowered its price for an annual World Collection Subscription to $99.95; and FamilySearch announces new and updated records and indexes at its site at http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch.

The Guys provide an update about the Library of Michigan crisis, provided by Tom Koselka of the Michigan Genealogical Council.

Drew interviews Steve Danko, expert genealogist in Polish research and personal blogger extraordinaire (http://www.stephendanko.com).

George discusses the fact that he has a new membership to the Godfrey Memorial Library (http://www.godfrey.org) and the types of subscriptions available.

The listener email includes: Eiya asks when you should shell out the big money for certified certificates; Ian asks for advice about the treatment of sensitive family information, such as illegitimate children; Jenna asks about the filing of marriage certificates - under the groom, the bride, or both; Clive shares some Irish websites he has found very helpful:

http://www.leitrim-roscommon.com/index.shtml
http://www.leitrim-roscommon.com/1901census/
http://www.leitrim-roscommon.com/GRIFFITH/
http://www.irish-roots.ie/
http://roscommon.brsgenealogy.com
http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=collectionDetails;c=1408347
http://www.groireland.ie/apply_for_a_cert.htm

Tom shares his new understanding about the term "removed" cousin; and Noi asks for advice in locating and accessing corporate records for genealogical purposes.

Join us for a terrific interview with Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, one of the co-hosts of the great PBS series, The History Detectives. The videocast can be accessed directly at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv.

Drew here: When I was inserting the commercials into the most recent podcast episode (#184) this morning, I made an error with the second one.  Fortunately, one of our listeners caught it and let us know.  I've now re-created the episode with the correct commercial.  So if you downloaded our #184 episode prior to 7:30pm ET (thereabouts) today, you'll have the uncorrected version, but you should be ok if you downloaded it since that time.  Sorry about that!

We apologize for the delay between podcasts, but we're back on schedule again!

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com and the Drouin Institute (http://institutdrouin.com), holder of one of the most important Canadian genealogical collections, announce the successful resolution to arbitration concerning content and indexing, and Ancestry.com has announced that the collection will be returning to its site very soon; dynastree announces that it now has 10 million family trees on its site, and that they have added new features including the ability to include family pictures in a GEDCOM file export; MyHeritage.com announces that its free Family Tree Builder software (free for download) now supports mapping, photo albums, and other new features; the Free Library of Philadelphia has averted disastrous budget cuts that would have closed all of its branches in early October; and the FamilySearch Indexing Project (http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start) has announced the release of additional new and updated collections.

The Library of Michigan continues to hang under the threat of its collection being dispersed by executive order of the state's governor. The Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC), a joint group of the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Genealogical Society, has initiated an online petition drive at http://www.petitiononline.com/RPAC2009/petition.html and The Guys strongly encourage you to sign electronically by 30 September 2009, the deadline date for the petition. For more information about the situation, visit the Michigan Genealogical Council's website at http://www.mimgc.org/LOM.html. (The Guys will continue to report on this critical situation over the coming weeks and months.)

This week's listener email includes: Pheobe has created a Cousin Camp for her nieces, nephews, and cousins aged 9 to 14 and offers to share information with others; George asks about how to cite death notices; Rob asks how many listeners there are for the podcast; Victoria discusses the software she uses on her Mac in order to run Windows-based programs such as RootsMagic; Margaret reports on genealogists and libraries, and methods for creating knowledge with web 2.0 technologies; Rebecca asks about file formats for digitizing family photos and documents and saving them into her genealogy database; Lee asks if other listeners have seen tombstones on which the wife's maiden name is listed; and Mary Ann asks for assistance in helping to locate more information about her grandmother in Texas.

George and Drew record this episode in front of a live audience at the 2009 annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Drew interviews members of the audience and the Guys take a number of audience questions.

This week's news includes: Hamburg, Germany-based dynastree (http://www.dynastree.com) announces an automatic search for potential relatives on its site; responses have been great about The Guys' new videocasting at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv; Ancestry.com announces the release of its new Family Tree Maker 2010 software; and Genealogy Wise announces that there are many great videos on its website.

Drew shares two interviews this week:

Michelle Pfister and Mark LeMonnier on the product team of Family Tree Maker of Ancestry.com discuss the software, improvements that have been made over the last year, and some of the things coming in the future.

Schelly Talalay Dardashti, author of the Tracing the Tribe blog (http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com), discusses Jewish genealogy and how to progress with your research.

This week's listener email includes: Eiya asks about the absence of marriage records for Fannin County, Texas, at Ancestry.com, and George has information about those records' availability on microfilm through the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah; one listener joined a genealogy society in January and has felt less than welcome, and asks when it might be appropriate to make suggestions for improvements; and Rebecca asks The Guys which genealogy software program that they use.

NOTE: The two interviews will be posted as videocasts within the coming week at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv.

We are very excited to announce that we've just published our first video episode at http://genealogyguys.blip.tv. This includes the interview with Janet Hovorka, otherwise known as "The Chart Chick," of Generation Maps (http://generationsmaps.com). You'll enjoy seeing the many examples of great genealogy charts that they can produce for you.

More video episodes are coming! You'll also be able to subscribe to an RSS feed as soon as iTunes reviews the first episode.

Let us know what YOU think!

This week's news includes: GenealogyWise (http://www.genealogywise.com), the recently launched genealogy social network, has added indexing to the Surname Groups; dynastree (http://www.dynastree.com) has announced that it now features maps showing the distribution of a surname for eight countries; and MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com) has added many new features and activities to its site.  The Guys then discuss news about the upcoming Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.

This week's podcast features two interviews by Drew from the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree in Burbank, California:

• The first is with Janet Hovorka, the "Chart Chick," of Generation Maps (http://www.printmyfamily.com). She discusses the range of custom charts that the company can provide.
• The second is with Craig Manson, legal expert and author of the GeneaBlogie blog at http://blog.geneablogie.net.

This week's listener email includes: Jean reports problems obtaining vital records from New Jersey; Lisa reports the same problem with New York; Paul asks a question about photos that have been uploaded to Ancestry.com; Tim in San Francisco shares a link to an article about Google Maps' street view cameras in Paris - on tricycles; and Tim in Tampa shares two important tips with listeners:

1. Google Books (http://books.google.com) has unearthed a vast amount of genealogical information through searching the site. Even books that are in copyright can often be obtained through Interlibrary Loan or otherwise. He especially recommends accessing Simon Greenleaf's three-volume work, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence.
2. The New York Historical Newspapers collection has been developed by the Northern New York Library Network. It contains 1,640,000 pages from 43 newspapers in seven northern New York counties: Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton, and Essex Counties. The collection can be found at http://news.nnyln.net.
   

This week's news includes: the Library of Michigan and its historical and genealogical collections are in jeopardy; Ancestry.com has filed with the SEC for a $75 million IPO; brightsolid announced the acquisition of the Friends Reunited Group for £25 million; Ancestry.com has substantially expanded its Jewish Family History Records collection; Ancestry.com also has announced the release of its fourth Ancestry World Archives project, the England and Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892; dynastree.com now offers a free 14-day trial of its premium subscription; and RootsMagic's Valentine's Day Family History Cruise of the Western Caribbean, sailing from Miami on 14 February 2010, is accepting reservations, and there will be great genealogy classes and shore excursions -- details are available at http://www.rootsmagiccruise.com.

The Guys will be part of a special event at the Federation of Genealogical Societies 2009 Conference in Little Rock. They will lead an Open Forum for Bloggers, Social Networkers, and Podcasters -- and for anyone interested in discussing or having questions. Meet The Guys, other bloggers, people on social networks you may never have met in person, and podcasters.

The Guys interview Maureen A. Taylor, the Photo Detective. Visit her website at http://www.photodetective.com, and sign up for her free newsletter at the bottom of the Web page. Catch her great blog as well!

The Guys discuss the crisis in Michigan with the governor's proposal to stop funding, close the library, and disperse the collection. The Michigan Genealogical Council organized an important rally this week at the State Capitol and then proceeded to march to the Library of Michigan. There the participants, nearly 500 strong, formed a "Hands Around the Library" demonstration, carried signs, and spoke with passers-by. There was local television and newspaper coverage of the event. The Guys are very concerned about this situation, and George is an outspoken library and archives advocate.

George reviews an outstanding book, Crash Course in Family History (3rd edition) by Paul Larson. The outstanding step-by-step book is available from EasyFamilyHistory.com (http://www.easyfamilyhistory.com), and previews of the book are available at http://www.crashcoursebook.com.

This week's listener email includes: Eric asks about the Frappr map that The Guys had on their website; Victoria shares the address of the University of Chicago's Archival Photographic Files at http://photofiles.lib.uchicago.edu; John weighs in on the subject of genealogical data placed behind societies' members-only walls; and Stephanie asks for suggestions on how to move data from Reunion to another PC-based software package.

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com launches a new feature called Member Connect to make connecting with others easier; and the Federation of Genealogy Societies (FGS) reminds our listeners that the 2009 FGS Conference is only a month away, September 2-5, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Guys reminds listeners that they will be there doing a LIVE podcast recording session with an audience.

The Guys welcome Julie Miller, CG, and Drew interviews her at the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree about research into the ancestors and relatives of a certain Denver celebrity.

This week's listener email includes: Clive asked George to also share the fact that The National Archives (TNA) in the UK also produces podcasts at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/default.htm on many topics; he also asks if we can find out when the "Criminal Registers, 1791-1892," from Ancestry's World Archive Project will be available online (and George will check); Clive also tells us another story of the use of the word "craic." (Drew also discusses the Geo Challenge game on Facebook.com.) Bill reminds us that PAF (Personal Ancestral File genealogy software from the LDS Church) is still an excellent free option for creating and maintaining your database; Noi asked about Footnote.com's calculation of the percent completed in the Civil War Widows' Pension Files collection, and received an answer from Footnote Support that she shared with everyone; Damien thanked The Guys for information about photo tagging software; Michael asked which death date to use in his database when his great uncle died at home about 11:00 PM and the doctor did not arrive to create the death certificate until about 12:30 AM on the next day; Michael also shares his difficulties working with the New Jersey state government to obtain an old death certificate -- the search was $25.00, regardless of outcome, required an extensive set of proofs of his relationship to the person for whose record he was requesting, and the office was exceptionally rude when he followed up by telephone. Ann Gulbransen, Historian for the Ohio Society of Mayflower Descendants, responded to a listener's inquiry in Episode 177. She tells us that the official books that trace Mayflower ancestry are called "The Mayflower Families Genealogies through Five Generations." Also known as the Silver Books, the completed books and indexes can be purchased through the online store at the Society's website at http://www.themayflowersociety.com. Kay is concerned about Ancestry's Hints and their application to potentially incorrect data. Rabbi Gary M. Gans has a new iPod and has been listening to the show since the first day he got it, and he inquired about the "Brisco" name he has heard George mention.

This week's news includes:

1. Ancestry.com has added the Canadian Censuses, 1851-1916, and one of the most comprehensive collections of Caribbean slave records, detailing nearly 200 years of St. Croix-Virgin Islands history.
   
2. The Michigan Genealogical Council has issued a press release regarding the crisis in funding for the Library of Michigan and the possible dissolution of its collection. A Hands Around the Library event will be held on Wednesday, 5 August 2009, in Lansing, beginning with assembly at 9:45 AM at the State Capitol. Questions can be sent to Sue Irvine at sjirv@yahoo.com.
3. Synium Software announces the release of MacFamilyTree version 5.6.
4. Northern Hills Software announces the release of Pocket Genealogist, version 3.40, for Windows Mobile devices.

Drew interviews Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, Ph.D., a star researcher of the hit PBS television program, History Detectives, at the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree.

This week's listener email includes:

1. Denise loves the way Fletcher meows on cue.
2. Patrice suggested a discussion of Second Life, and Lisa suggested a discussion about researching the history of old houses. (The Guys will work on some stories about these topics and others you might suggest.)
   
3. A response to Margaret in Dublin about Aster Software's iPhone app, FamViewer. The company informs us that there are planned enhancements to the project, but there are no plans in place to provide an editing function and upload to source genealogy programs.
4. Rich H. shared a story about two people named Kelly Hildebrandt who connected on Facebook and who will be married in October. The two are not related.
5. Connie asks about the use of the terms "brother-in-law" and "stepdaughter" in the mid-1800s and what the terms might mean.
6. Rich C. discusses the use of the phrase "turn of the century" and suggests that we designate which century. He also shares an article from Fortune magazine concerning whether or not information should be free. (Visit http://tinyurl.com/fortuneinfo to see the article.)
7. Michael asks us to tell Tom about a national youth organization for kids interested in genealogy. It is the Youth Genealogists Association at http://www.youthgen.net.
8. Drew announces that 50 libraries across the U.S. are offering free text reference service to people using text messaging. You can text a question to (309) 222-7740 and a real, live librarian will respond within minutes. Named My Info Quest, this service is the first collaborative text reference service. (Standard text messaging charges apply.)
9. Sherry reminds people to check with local funeral homes for obituaries, and sometimes for photos and videos of the individual. The funeral homes' files may contain more information that was published in newspapers.
10. Victoria asks about our logo and whether we can drive that down to listeners' files.
11. Denise has been searching for a birth record for her grandmother, and The Guys respond with some suggestions. George read some material from Ancestry Publishing's Red Book concerning Missouri vital records. He provided an updated link at http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/birthdeath/ as another possible source for these records.
    

This week's news includes: The Generations Network has changed its name to Ancestry.com; The National Archives (TNA) (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) in the U.K. has launched truly great new learning guides online at its site, under the tabs Research and Learning, Research Guidance, and Understand the Archives in Minutes; Digital Genealogist magazine will cease publication with the July/August 2009 issue; MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com) announces new photo features, including a photo tagging system; dynastree (http://www.dynastree.com) announces an extended search facility; Gus reminds us that the newly updated Reunion app from LeisterPro (http://www.leisterpro.com) will operate on both the iPhone and the iPod Touch; and The Genealogy Guys Podcast will be LIVE at the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas -- producing a live podcast recording session on Thursday, September 3rd, at 3:30 PM.

Drew interviews Lisa Louise Cooke of the Genealogy Gems Podcast (http://www.genealogygemspodcast.com) at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree.

This week's listener email includes: Rich asks about what is involved with playing and producing podcasts; Christopher tells us that annotating and tagging photos is a feature of LifeStory Productions' Heritage Collector Suite (http://heritagecollector.com); a listener asked if our podcasts are transcribed into written form, and Drew responds that they are not; Michael asks for suggestions about his brick wall with Murry M. Jones in Indiana; Roger, Tom, and Rich responded to the discussion about information placed in member-only areas of genealogical websites; Brent Ropelato of TopTenREVIEWS recommends the genealogy software reviews (http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com) which George indicates does not at present include Mac software, and may not be 100% up to date; and Larry asks for suggestions about tracing his ancestor who supposedly is a Mayflower descendant.

This week's news includes: Aster Software has released a new version 2.0 of its FamViewer software application (app) for the iPhone, and LeisterPro has released its version 1.0.2 of Reunion for the iPhone. Famview is used to download GEDCOM files to an iPhone, while Reunion is specifically used to download genealogy data from the Reunion desktop program. dynastree (http://www.dynastree.com) is celebrating its second anniversary, and has launched Turkish support on its site. Ancestry.com has launched a new "My Story" advertising campaign.

This week's listener email includes: a response to Rollin concerning a photo of a child holding a ball; Joel Weintraub responds to a listener's query for a photo tagging program, and he gives us Photo Express (http://www.passageexpress.com); Judy asks for advice about locating Social Security information for her great-grandfather who may have stretched the truth about his year of birth; Rich suggests two websites for locating obituaries in the New York City area - Legacy.com at http://www.legacy.com/NS/ and The Journal News at http://www.nyjnews.com/obituary/search.php3; Tom shares a great story about kids getting interested in genealogy; Art is compiling an Excel spreadsheet with information about people he plans to research in the 1940 census when it is released to the public in 2012; Michelle did her podcasting presentation for the Glendale Chapter of the Family History Society of Arizona; Michael discusses his DNA testing and encourages people to especially have their older relatives tested; Jim asks about NewpaperARCHIVE.com, and shares with us the Washington State Digital Archives at http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov, where recent additions include the King County, WA, marriage Records and World War I Veterans' Records. Roger (Marathon Man) is once again caught up on the podcasts, and reminds people that The Guys will be at the Western Michigan Genealogical Society Conference on November 7th -- details are at http://gotancestors.com. He also talks about:

1. how to enter multiple names, such as Stanislav and Stanley
2. His use of TNG (The Next Generation of Genealogy Site Building) and offers several examples, including http://roger.lisaandroger.com/getperson.php?personID=I16&tree=Roger, Clan Moffat, and http://trees.wmgs.org. 
3. Photo tagging software, including Apple's iPhoto that includes face recognition.

Drew interviews Bruce Buzbee, president of RootsMagic, at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree.

And The Guys thank everyone at the Southern California Genealogical Society for a wonderful time at Jamboree!

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

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com has added new content; MyHeritage.com has added more than 150 new databases in the last week of February; NewspaperARCHIVE continues to add new digitized and indexed newspaper content, and has added blogs, social networking interfaces, and Twitter; the Library of Michigan has just added Michigan death certificates spanning 1897 to 1920 at Seeking Michigan at http://www.seekingmichigan.org; Dick Eastman welcomes new English writer and genetic genealogy expert Chris Pomery to Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (http://blog.eogn.com); Steve Danko has just returned from the Family Tree DNA 5th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy for Project Administrators, and he has a great report at his blog at http://stephendanko.com; and Maureen A. Taylor, the leading expert on evaluating and dating photographs, author, and lecturer, has an excellent blog on the subject at http://photodetective.blogspot.com.

This week's email includes: Henry asked about digital camera reviews, and George responded that he had written an article for the 22 February issue of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter on that subject; Steve shouts out some positive kudos for the new RootsMagic Version 4 beta edition of its great genealogical database software package; and Lisa asks for tactful ways to tell someone that they probably have wrong information.

George reviews two new books: Genealogical Publishing Company has just published a new 5th edition of Thomas Jay Kemp's book, The International Vital Records Handbook; and Ancestry Publishing has just published a new book, Finding Granddad's War, by Jeffrey Badger, which details his search for information about his father's experiences and colleagues in the 978th Engineer Maintenance Company during World War II.

This week's news includes: RootsMagic releases the public beta of Version 4 of the RootsMagic software; Ancestry.com released five new databases in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday; Ancestry has replaced the Ancestry Weekly Journal with a new newsletter, The Weekly Discovery; Sonja Nishimoto, Family History Library Consultant, has invited genealogical and historical societies and their members to contribute content to the FamilySearch Research Wiki at wiki.familysearch.org; the Southern California Genealogical Society's 40th annual Jamboree will be held in Burbank, CA, on 26-28 June 2009, and its blog is online at www.genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com -- and a special guest speaker, Tukufu Zuberi of the PBS show, "History Detectives," will address the Friday evening banquet; the MyHeritage Genealogy Search Engine (www.MyHeritage.com) announces some newly released improvements; and Lisa Louise Cook of "The Genealogy Gens Podcast" (www.genealogygems.tv/Pages/Podcast/PodcastList.htm) announces the guest of the most recent episode of the podcast, Darby Hinton, who starred as Israel on the 1960s TV hit, "Daniel Boone." The episode also celebrates the podcast's second anniversary.

This week's listener email includes: Nancy in Ontario reported that she had a problem with the podcast loading in her Firefox Live Bookmark feed; Doug reminds us that the St. Albans Border Crossings immigration records reflect immigrations from Canada (and that St. Albans is in VT and not NH); Elliot asks for advice about what name to record when the surname changed over the centuries; Jane asked George for the name of his publish-on-demand resources, which is Lulu.com; Drew provided a resource for comparison of print-on-demand resources at http://mashable.com/2009/03/01/publish-book/; Joel Weintraub provides information about the origins of the 72-year privacy policy for U.S. federal censuses and his article on the subject at http://members.cox.net/census1940/; Bill discusses the fact that census images in the Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest Online databases are not the same; TC discusses the backups of genealogy files on Mozy.com; Gus recounts his experience of getting locked in a cemetery; Judy shares a follow-up story about storing photos on an external hard drive; Scott asks about the protocol for thanking helpful cemetery workers; Cheryl tells us that the 1935 and 1945 Florida census records are also available at the LDS pilot site at http://search.labs.familysearch.org, and that many records still need volunteers to help index them; Mary tells us that The Master Genealogist database software allows for the entry of GPS latitude and longitude coordinates on every event; Mac shares a service at http://www.mailstore.com/en that allows you to backup email from multiple email accounts and tools in one place; and Rollin asks for help with the definition of "freeman" as applied to Caucasians in 1600s New England colonial records.

George reviews two new products:


Suzanne Russo Adams, AG, has written a brilliant new book, Finding Your Italian Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide, published by Ancestry Publishing and available through the Ancestry.com Store. The book is filled with well-written explanations and discussions, and includes a wide variety of document and Internet site illustrations.

Listen to the podcast and find out more about these two excellent new products!

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com adds Abraham Lincoln Papers, New Orleans Slave manifests (1807-1860), Confederate Pension Applications from  Georgia, Confederate Applications for Presidential Pardons, and U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles; Ancestry.com also has reduced the prices of its DNA tests; FamilySearch is partnering with the Houston Public Library to digitize a vast collection of Gulf Coast records; NewspaperARCHIVE.com has announced a new column by Phyllis Matthews Ziller; a new, free online genealogy magazine has just been announced -- Genealogy In Time at http://www.genealogyintime.com; The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) has just announced the program for the 2009 Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas (2-5 September 2009) and has made the program and registration available at http://www.fgs.org/2009conference/; registration is also now open for the Association of Professional Genealogists' Professional Management Conference, to be held on 2 September 2009 in conjunction with the FGS Conference, and registration is also available at http://www.fgs.org/2009conference/; Wholly Genes, maker of The Master Genealogist software program, has announced its 5th annual conference, a "land cruise," to be held 26-30 August 2009 in Orkney Springs, Virginia, and information and registration is available at http://www.whollygenes.com/confregister.htm; George will appear at the Oregon Genealogical Society Conference in Eugene, Oregon, on 7 March 2009, and more information is available by calling the OGS Library at (541) 345-0399; NBC has announced that it will begin televising the U.S. version of the popular British program, "Who Do You Think You Are?"; the annual "Who Do You Think You Are?" genealogy conference will be held at Olympia, London, England, on 27 February to 1 March 2009; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has created a site at http://www.familyhistory.hhs.gov at which you can enter your medical genealogy for your family; the U.S. War Department papers (1784-1800) have been reconstituted and digitized, and can be found at http://www.wardepartmentpapers.org; and David Rumsey, active collector of historical maps and owner of the site, http://www.davidrumsey.com, has announced that he will be donating his collection of maps to Stanford University. In the meantime, there are more than 18,500 map images online at present, and plans are to add 3,000 to 5,000 images per year.

This week's listener email includes: Linda discusses Mozy indicators on files; Gus shares another back up resource -- Click Free at http://goclickfree.com/; Roger discusses New York state censuses (and using his iPod at the gym!); Paul discusses the problems he has working with Ancestry.com search results, and wishes that his own data and data without any source citations wouldn't show in searches; Pete discusses backups with Windows Home Server; HP's equivalent, and Acer's new product; Victoria provides an excellent idea for adding identifying information to your flash drive, in case it gets lost or forgotten in a library or archive; Valerie asked about what to expect at a local LDS Family History Center; Tom discovered a subsidiary collection of information at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library website titled "Boys in Blue," at http://www.alplm.org/library/boys_intro.html, and the site as a searchable database that references the library's  photographs of soldiers; and Rich shares a source for "the world's most secure flash drive" at https://www.ironkey.com/.

The Genealogy Guys broadcast "LIVE" from the Volusia-Flagler County Genealogical Society Conference in Daytona Beach, Florida. They take and respond to questions from the audience.

The podcast begins with The Guys talking about upcoming speaking engagements.

Drew discusses his recent trip to Salt Lake City, and describes Blogger's Day at Ancestry.com. Eight bloggers paid a visit to The Generations Network's data center, which houses the computer equipment for Ancestry.com, RootsWeb.com, and Genealogy.com. They then went to Provo to the company's offices and met with a number of the employees, and learned more about Ancestry.com's operations and plans.

Drew began the next segment by reading an email from John with his tips for visiting Salt Lake City and the Family History Library. Drew then describes the nearby Plaza Hotel accommodations and the FHL itself. He offers tips for people traveling to SLC for a library research visit. He stresses advance preparation, and offers information about the area.

This week's listener email includes: Chanda discusses cousin marriages; Sherry comments on her recent experience with Mozy, and Drew adds more -- about the need to specify uncommon file types to insure that they are backed up; Barbara reminds George that RootsMagic 3 does support the input of latitude and longitude coordinates in the database; Bill got our RSS feed for his WiFi radio working, and can now tune to our station on his radio to listen to the podcast; Marilyn was lookoing for the RSS feed URL on our website, and Drew told our listeners to look for the little RSS 2.0 box under Syndication on the right side of our webpage; Karen wrote to discuss the question, "What do I do with the 'stuff'?"; and Kay says, "I can't believe I listened to the whole thing!"

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com launches a new Florida State Census Collection (1867, 1875, 1935, and 1945); the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announced that president J. Mark Lowe has resigned for personal reasons, and Vice President of Administration, Pat Oxley, has assumed the presidency; a Union County, Illinois group, Promoting Appreciation of Structural Treasures (PAST), is seeking to purchase the "House Where Lincoln Stayed" in Anna, Illinois, in 1858 when he was there to debate Stephen Douglas in one of the most historic political debates in U.S. History. Tax-deductible contributions can be made to PAST Lincoln House Project, Mona Diefenbach, 190 White Pine Lane, Anna, IL 62906.

Listener email this week included: Peter is concerned that searches in Ancestry.com for his family always include his own data at the top of the search results list, and believes that Ancestry.com should be able to mask or omit his own results; Virginia asked for clarification about ordering SS-5 applications for a Social Security Number, especially for deceased persons not in the SSDI; Roxanna shared a strong tip for researching in Salt Lake City; Scott wrote again to clarify his method for storing data at Ancestry.com and using his RootsMagic software; he also shared his excitement at having found old family photo albums and having found great information on the back of important photos; Sean recommends a product called SpinRite from Gibson Research Corporation (http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) to help recover data from damaged magnetic storage media.

Drew discusses the crash of his desktop PC, and the steps he is taking to repair the hard disk and restore his data.

This week's news includes: The North Carolina Genealogical Society (NCGS) announces a workshop on 14 March 2009 with Craig Roberts Scott, CG, in New Bern, NC -- more information is available at the NCGS website at http://www.ncgenealogy.org/ (click the Calendar button); Science Daily has published an interesting article at this location; Tim Skinner, author of the Map My Ancestors program (http://www.familytreeassistant.com/), informs us that the program allows you to view your tree on Google Earth, Google Maps, and many GPS and SatNav devices; and Mike O'Laughlin has two new genealogy podcasts -- Irish Families enhanced podcast at http://www.irishroots.com/podcasten/rss.xml (free QuickTime player preferred) and Irish Roots Cafe video podcasts at http://www.irishroots.com/irishvideo/rss.xml (free iTunes player preferred).

This week's listener email includes: Marie found lots of Body/Bodi surnames in the FHL microfilm for Ottawa County, Ohio, birth records; Ian Towler shares information on another open source program, PhpGedView, at http://phpgedview.net/ that allows you to view and edit your genealogy on your website -- and Ian has shared the URL for his website (http://familytree.itowler.com/) that uses this program so that everyone can see what he was able to do with the software; and Michael Moore has begun a website and library called Bookscanned (at http://bookscanned.com/) which allows you to upload scanned pages of a book, such as a family history, and then he OCRs them, and then adds the image and the OCR text to a Web page -- and then a search engine can find the page; Scott tells us that (re: episode #159) that he maintains his family tree at Ancestry.com, and then downloads a GEDCOM file into his copy of RootsMagic genealogy software.

The Guys discuss Christmas traditions in their families and others over the years.

This week's news includes: Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, submitted his resignation to the President, effective 19 December 2008, citing health reasons for his decision; and FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org) just completed digitizing its 25,000th book. (Visit http://www.familysearch.org and click on Search Records and then on Historical Records.)

This week's listener email includes: Rich discusses how he used Windows Home Server to back up his data, and how he was able to use it when his son's hard drive failed; he also shared another website at which a small program can be downloaded for free that allows you to locate and use special characters -- It is at SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/allchars; Rollin wrote to clarify that support for adding GPS coordinates is available in the purchased Deluxe version of Legacy and not in the free Basic version; Rich in PA advised us that Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com/) has added the great facility to link parents and children, and spouses, to records there (using the Find A Grave Memorial number at the bottom of the left-hand column); he also shares another social networking site for book lovers called Shelfari (http://www.shelfari.com/), similar to LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com); Claire shared an excellent census map resource at http://www.familyhistory101.com/map_census.html at which you will find maps for most U.S. states that you can use to see boundary changes for each of the census years; Tom shared a story from the Kansas City Star from 15 November 2008 [the story has been retired from their website] in which Linda K. Lewis was highlighted as having spent 5 years with volunteers documenting and photographing 40 of the 44 known cemeteries in Johnson County, KS -- and she has documented them all at http://cemetery.cottonhills.com/;  Tim asked for The Guys' opinions about using a genealogy database software program vs. Ancestry.com as a repository for his genealogy information; Rod in Australia shared an excellent interview from Australian Radio National regarding cousin marriage with Cathy Day, PhD researcher, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, ANU -- listen to it at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2426440.htm or click on the link above.

We have a new microphone cable for the mixer this week, and we hope that alleviates the stereo cut out problems. We are also sending out our logo as album art.

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This week's news includes: Footnote.com announces a new Interactive World War II Collection; The Generations Network, owner of Ancestry.com and other companies, announces the appointment of Howard Hochhauser as the new CFO; Ancestry.com's first World Archives Project Collection, Wisconsin Mortality Schedules, 1850-1880, has been completed; The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has announced two new awards to recognize significant achievements in genealogy research, based on records from the National Archives, and eligible applicants must attend a U.S. college or university; the Arizona State Archives (http://www.lib.az.us/archives/) has moved into the new, $29M Polly Rosenbaum Archives and History Building in Phoenix; and the Ohio Genealogical Society (http://www.ogs.org/) has reached its $2.5M funding goal to construct a new 18,000 square foot library in Bellville, Ohio, with construction beginning in early 2009.

This week's listener email included: Brian asked if there are online church records available for Northern Ireland, and Drew suggested the Ulster Historical Foundation site at http://www.ancestryireland.com/, a pay site; Brian also has started a family site at MyHeritage.com (http://www.myheritage.com/) and was concerned about privacy -- Drew found that you can log in, set up your site, and specify that it is a) a public site, b) a private site (for invited persons only to access), or c) a mixed site that is a combination of public information and private information that you define; Mike had asked for help locating his great-grandfather in the census prior to his marriage; Gus provided an excellent link to a website that shows the keyboard equivalents for UTF-8 special characters, at http://www.typeart.com/special_characters.asp; Rollin advises us that Legacy Family Tree software allows the recording of GPS coordinates; Peter advises us that Brother's Keeper software also allows recording of GPS information; Karen shares information about the importance of using small, hometown newspapers in your research; Bill asks for help with linking to the podcast using a WiFi radio, and Drew suggested the use of Reciva.com (https://www.reciva.com/); Jack shared information about communities and church membership, and about another look at researching the information; Russ shares information about the destination of Episcopalian records for a church that closes; and Jonathan discusses the transformation of maiden names down through the generations.

Drew discusses DNA mailing lists: the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (http://www.isogg.org/) has a free monthly email newsletter, as well as other resources at its site; and RootsWeb's DNA-Newbie mailing list is available for free subscription at http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/DNA/DNA-NEWBIE.html.

Drew also explains how a DNA paternity test works.

We apologize for the few cut-outs of stereo in this week's episode. We have replaced a damaged cable and should be fine in the future.

This week's news includes: Edna Parker, world's oldest woman, died in Shelbyville, Indiana, this week at age 115 years, 220 days; social networking site Genoom.com (http://www.genoom.com) announces the expansion of its international support for 17 languages; social networking site itsourtree.com has been renamed to dynastree (http://www.dynastree.com/); FamilySearch.org is seeking assistance with indexing projects, and you can learn more at http://www.familysearch.org/eng/indexing/frameset_indexing.asp - particularly Canadian and Norwegian censuses; Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com) has recently added more than 1100 U.S. city directories with more than 50M names; Calico Pie Limited, maker of the U.K.'s leading family history program, announces the forthcoming release of version 4 of its Family Historian program at http://family-historian.co.uk/; Library and Archives Canada (LAC) announces the launch of a new online database, Immigrants to Canada, accessible by clicking here; and FamilySearch.org has released more online courses.

George reviewed a book last week, and inadvertently misspelled the author's name. The book is Finding Your Chicago Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County, by Grace DuMelle, and published by Lake Claremont Press. My sincere apologies!

This week's listener email includes: John's confusing ancestral marriages for the Muson family; Sharon had questions about sources, and about resources for Tory ancestors [Listeners can weigh in on the topic]; Kathy asked about content in the Ancestry Publishing surname books, and she offers information about TinyUrl.com (http://tinyurl.com/); Deborah makes suggestions for your 2009 genealogy project; Peter tells us that a Palm OS handheld application for genealogy, MobileGenealogy, has been newly updated and is available at http://www.mobilegenealogy.com/ [Correction: MobileGenealogy is not a Palm OS application, but instead a website that discusses handheld genealogy applications.];Claire discusses the Shrubs app for iPhone, and she shares another excellent online newspaper application at the Library of Congress at Chronicling America (http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/); Beth shares an excellent and simple database program for Macintosh called Bento from FileMaker (http://filemaker.com/); Victoria asked for clarification of how George has been able to run RootsMagic, a Windows program, on his Mac; and Russ asked about how to handle the sourcing of a burial in his database.

This week's news includes: Sirius Innovations introduces a new genealogy website at http://www.siriusgenealogy.com/ "with a focus on using today's technology in documenting a family's history"; Ancestry.com has introduced the Ancestry Toolbar for use with your browser (IE or Firefox, ostensibly for Windows users only) to save photos and stories/text from the Web to your Ancestry Member Tree and more information and the free download can be found at http://landing.ancestry.com/toolbar/. George also has corrected his typo on the URL for the National Library of Australia, which  has launched Australia Newspapers at http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au. Please check it out!

George reviews the book, Finding Your Chicago Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County, by Grace DeMelle, and published by Lake Claremont Press. (The publisher has a number of additional excellent titles concerning the Chicago area.)

Listener email includes: Gus tells us that his mystery concerning his grandfather, Vere Preston Marsh, in Virginia, St. Louis County, Minnesota, has been solved and he now has a photo of the gravestone; Rich suggested that Gus check at Find A Grave and post a request for a volunteer to get that photo for him too (and I see that Gus has added a record for Vere already!); Tom advised us that the Rome [GA] Tribune-Herald newspaper is online and searchable; Linda responded to last week's podcast regarding the PDF version of Elizabeth Shown Mills' book, Evidence Explained, and the fact that it can be used on multiple computers; the Family History Library (FHL) has introduced five free video classes about English research [click here] and requests feedback on them; Tom asks for advice about treatment and preservation of a collection of moldy documents received from his great aunt; T.C. and Claire shared information about another iPhone application (app) for loading genealogy information onto your device -- it is FamViewer from Aster Software (http://www.astersoftware.biz/)and sells for $14.99 at the iTunes Store (iTunes for Mac and PC is a free download at http://www.apple.com and you can access the Tunes store through that software); Russ has published information on his blog concerning moving Family Tree Maker Version 16 (or earlier) from one computer to another with the new FTM 2009; Dave wrote to continue the discussion concerning primary vs. secondary sources; and Russ discusses church history.