Bandit passed away yesterday. He was a siamese cat that adopted us when he was just a tiny kitten. In early September of 1994, Patty and I were out at by the mailbox at our getaway place near Custer, South Dakota. Bandit was crying and hidden under a sign by the highway. He was almost all white, with a few markings that gave away his siamese heritage. He looked to be about 6 weeks old. He immediately became part of the family, traveling in the motor coach for 6 years, and then settling down with us in Bountiful, Utah. When he was young, he would spring up onto the passenger-side windshield ...

Don’t Marcia and I look really good? Marcia and I were in the same high school graduating class back in 1961 and we have not seen each other since……… until last Saturday. I gave a presentation to the Jefferson County (WA) Gen Soc and as Marcia lives near, she came! It was just grand. Wherever did those FIFTY YEARS go???? Harriet DeWolfe from Whidbey Island was there….. anybody remember her in our tour family?? Any interesting news from any of you?? Lloyd Welker from Florida emailed to ask me if I was sick of winter yet. DUH! AM I!! I’m craving the ...

The following News Release was received from Paul Nauta at FamilySearch: 9 Million Browsable Images from 9 Countries Added This Week New Records for Brazil, Canada, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, U.S., and Venezuela The bounty just keeps coming from FamilySearch’s digital pipeline. Mexico collections earned the top spot this week, with nearly 5 million new browsable images added. The Mexico records date from 1545 to 1984. In addition to Mexico, FamilySearch continued this week to strengthen its free online international collections by expanding 7 more of its ...

UPDATED 23 MARCH 2011 In the last week of February, FamilySearch posted a large index of North Carolina deaths. It covers the years 1931 through 1994. According to the website, the data comes from the North Carolina Dept. of Health, with the original documents housed at the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in Raleigh, North Carolina. Note that the data posted is only an index, extracted from 1279 reels of microfilm at the Family History Library, in Salt Lake City, Utah. I did a search on the surname Daffern, and came up with 55 results, none of them specifically Daffern, ...

I see that Eric Basir, owner of Photo Grafix, will be giving three workshops at the upcoming Federation of Genealogical Society’s Annual Conference to take place in Springfield Illinois this next September 8-10, 2011. His workshops are as follows: Restoring Documents With Your Computer, Thursday, 11:00am-12:00pm, T-204 Fixing Faded Color Photos with Adobe Photoshop, Friday, 5:00pm-6:00pm, F-348 Photo Restoration From Start to Finish Demonstration, Saturday, 8:00am-9:00am, S-400 Eric produces video photo retouching and restoration courses and books . His blog has numerous free ...

The following is am open letter written by Virginia Shadron, chairperson of the Friends of Georgia Archives & History: An open letter from FOGAH Chair, Virginia Shadron: The Fiscal Year 2012 budget that passed the Georgia House of Representatives on March 11 as HB 78 includes budget reductions that could result in the [Georgia] State Archives closing its doors to the public. The budget contains two items that together would reduce the Archives’ budget by at least $300,000. The Archives’ base budget, after preceding budget cuts, is $4,643,588. Over 65% of that goes to ...

The following press release was received from Rootstech/FamilySearch: Popular Conference Makes Select Presentations Available for Free Online 11 March 2011 SALT LAKE CITY: If you missed the popular inaugural RootsTech 2011 conference, you can now at least get a sampling of what all the excitement was about. The wildly popular new technology and family history conference held last month in Salt Lake City, Utah, made its keynote addresses and a few other popular presentations available online today free of charge. The six free presentations can be viewed at RootsTech.org . “The scope ...

I haven’t made a breakthrough on any of my direct-line ancestors in years. All the easy research was done years ago, and most breakthroughs are now made after extensive research. However, prompted by the need to write a review of a new search engine, and with a little flexibility & persistence on my part, I now have the name of a previously unknown fourth great-grandfather, as well as vital record dates, and burial places for family members in Rensselaer County, New York. I was very pleased when I had the chance a couple weeks ago to play with a new search developed by Cliff ...

When we’re in Salt Lake in December it’s cold, trees are bare and no flowers are blooming. Not so in spring! Kinda wish we did our Tour in spring for Temple Square is blooming with thousands of bulbs of all sorts. Like this picture but more. Have you been watching the days counting down? We’re now under 260 days to our next “rendezvous!” I’m guessing that will bring groans as well as smiles. What did you think of the March newsletter? Any of you going to use Alan Neve’s map to plan your summer-trip-tour-family-visits?? Thought for the week: ...

UPDATE: THE FREE SHIPPING SALE AT THE FPRC WEBSITE HAS BEEN EXTENDED THROUGH APRIL 5, 2011. SEE DETAILS BELOW. Family Roots Publishing Co., LLC is offered FREE SHIPPING on all orders for delivery within the United States totaling $25 or more in product. This offer starts NOW, and end Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at Midnight MDT. We now have over 1200 items posted at the site, with more going up every day. We are also making the offer to USA located Libraries and Institutions who wish to purchase by online Purchase Order (see the Library Purchases paragraph near the bottom of the Family Roots ...

Footnote.com is one of my favorite websites. Found among the many databases located there is the entire series of the Pennsylvania Archives. It’s one of the FREE databases found at Footnote.com, and one of the most useful, if you’ve got early Pennsylvania people. Sure, it’s been posted a long time, but I’ll bet all my readers haven’t checked it out for their people… You’ll find the following types of early Pennsylvania records at the site: Church Records Diaries and Journals Governors and their Constituents Land Warrantee Records (1730-1898) ...

FamilySearch.org began upgrading to a new and expanded server system on March 7 at 11 pm. It was down for quite some time, then up, and so forth… As of Thursday, March 10, it was still buggy - and in attempting to access today (Friday), I haven’t ever been able to get access to the site. Others are reporting similar experiences. So we’ll all just have to be patient until it’s working again. It’s said that “this system will not only have more capacity but will have a back up to take the place of the main servers if there are ever problems in the future. ...

The following news release was received from Suzanne Curley, with FamilySearch: The Riverton, Utah, FamilySearch Library Hosts Event on March 19, 2011 RIVERTON, UTAH—The rapid digitization of records online is a crucial event in genealogy today, but records are appearing so fast on so many websites that most genealogists have no way to know where to find the best record. At this month’s Saturday Seminar, hosted by the Riverton FamilySearch Library, keynote speaker Michael Ritchey will address the topic “The Power of We: A Watershed Movement in Discovering Where to Find ...

According to an item in The Weekly Genealogist, Vol. 14, No. 10, Whole #521, every five years the custody of Massachusetts vital records over 90 years old is conveyed from the Massachusetts Department of Health to the Massachusetts Archives. Vital records dating from 1916 to 1920 are now in the process of shifting to the Archives. Note that the records are temporarily closed while they are transferred and inventoried.

Srinagar, Mar 4: The Archives Department in Kashmir houses some of the vital documents about Kashmir’s history, culture and heritage. But for the Jammu and Kashmir Government, they seem to be worth nothing, not even preservation. A cursory look at Kashmir Repository, located inside the dilapidated building of the Archives Department in Old Secretariat here, is enough to reveal how bird droppings and dust have together taken sheen off Kashmir’s rich archival material, which observers believe includes “important, unique, and rare” documents and manuscripts. Since ...