RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 06 June 2007, Vol. 10, No. 23 (c) 1998-2007 RootsWeb.com, Inc. http://www.rootsweb.com/ * * * Having trouble reading this newsletter? The online version is available at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/review/2007/0606.txt * * * ROOTSWEB HELPDESK: Check here for site maintenance announcements: http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ * * * ROOTSWEB NEWSROOM: Check here for the latest RootsWeb news: http://blogs.rootsweb.com/newsroom/ * * * ROOTSWEB STORE: Check here for the latest in genealogy books, software, photos, and more: http://www.therootswebstore.com/ * * * ROOTSWEB REVIEW ARCHIVES: Check here for previous editions: http://e-zine.rootsweb.com/ ============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. Editor's Desk: News and Notes 1a. Newsletter Worth Looking At 1b. CDs available from National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference 1c. Book Notice (2) 2. Using RootsWeb: Dates and Calendars Through the Ages 3. Connecting Through RootsWeb: Missing Thief 4. Bottomless Mailbag: Spot Checks Pay Off Soundex Screw-ups Furthering the Debate on Archival-Quality Data Digital Archiving Reconsidered 5. New at RootsWeb 5a. New User-contributed Databases 5b. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages by Individuals 5c. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages by Counties, States, and Genealogical/Historical Societies 5d. New Mailing Lists 6. Humor/Humour 7. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints ============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. Editor's Desk: News and Notes 1a. Newsletter Worth Looking At If you have Jewish ancestry, consider subscribing to "Nu? What's New?" a biweekly e-zine on Jewish genealogy: http://www.avotaynu.com/nuwhatsnew.htm This week's newsletter highlighted two great sites, which I recommend viewing whether you have Jewish ancestry or not: --Convoy XX from Malines to Auschwitz, 1600 souls It takes only a few minutes to view this site, but is well worth it. It has seven shots of a new photographic display at the Malines Center in Belgium. The display, which takes up almost 100 meters of wall space, contains the pictures of 1,200 people (out of a total of 25,000) who were deported from Malines to Auschwitz. http://www.avotaynu.com/malines/ --Yad Vashem: The Holocaust's Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority Yad Vashem was established in 1953 by an act of the Israeli Knesset. Its goal is to document the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust (Shoah, in Hebrew). This website, maintained by Yad Vashem, contains a database of about 5 million Jews and others who were involved in the Holocaust; diaries, letters, photographs, and artwork by and of victims; links to related audio and podcast lectures; a virtual tour of the new Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem; and more. http://yadvashem.org/ 1b. CDs available from National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference Missed the NGS conference this year? You can purchase CDs of more than 100 lectures given at the conference on Jamb-Inc.com. CDs cost $12.00 each. http://www.jamb-inc.com/ Or, check out the new and updated e-books in the NGS "Research in the States" series. New and updated books exist for Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, with more to come. E-books are $8.00 for members; $10.00 for non-members. https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/bookstore/ListItems.cfm?CATID=32 1c. Book Notice (2) "The American Descendants of Lawrence Pearson of Yorkshire" By Merry Anne Pierson, 2005 This Quaker family first arrived in Philadelphia around 1711 and settled in Darby, moving west throughout the country. The book is 459 pages, with source notes and an every-name index. Hardbound. $65.00. * * * "Descendants of Samuel Pierson and Sarah A. White" By Merry Anne Pierson, 2007 This family lived primarily in the Ohio River Valley area but descendants moved throughout the country. The book is 350 pages, with source notes and an every-name index. Hardbound. $39.95. Order both books at: www.westviewpublishing.com. 2. Using RootsWeb: Dates and Calendars Through the Ages By Mary Harrell-Sesniak "Genealogy is not just a pastime; it's a passion." Over the centuries, the calendar has changed many times, and genealogists quickly learn that a date is not always what it seems. It may surprise you to learn that the year has not always had 365 days, and that the first day in the year was not always 1 January. In fact, there have been numerous versions of calendars. Some were based upon the motion of the earth around the sun, and others, such as the Islamic calendar, were calculated around the motion of the moon. The Jewish calendar combined both systems; years were associated with the motion of the Earth around the sun, and months corresponded to the motion of the moon. Over time, these and other systems proved to be inexact and required reforming. The first known calendar dates to the year 4,236 BCE (before the common era), when the Egyptians fashioned one with 365 days. Later ones chosen by Greek and Jewish cultures were set at 354 days, but occasional adjustments were made to conform to the solar year. Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) constructed a calendar known as the Julian calendar; he decreed that each year should properly be 365 1/4 days long. Since a day couldn't be quartered, three years were set at 365, and the fourth (leap year) at 366. At that time, the first day of the year was 25 March, a date chosen to coincide with the equinox. Aequus means equal in Latin, and nox night; hence, the equinox is a time when daytime and nighttime theoretically have equal lengths, due to the sun's location above the equator. Caesar recognized that the equinox was out of alignment with the calendar, and made an adjustment in the year 46 BCE for a one-time length of 445 days. This lengthy calendar year was vastly different from the ones that preceded it. Our ancestors undoubtedly struggled at the timing of the seasons, when to take in the crops, and even when to celebrate holidays. No wonder that 46 BCE became known as Annus Confusionus, or the Year of Confusion. Christians used the equinox to predict the timing of Easter, but since the system was inexact, it fell out of sequence during the Middle Ages. Pope Gregory VIII made a one-time removal of ten days and converted the first day of the year to 1 January. So to Catholics, the dates of 5-14 October 1582 never existed, but to Protestants, who didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar at that time, they do. Catholics and Protestants adhered to their individual calendars, but realized differing cultures need a mutually understandable system. If the twelfth month was February in one system and December in another, you had to be of the same culture to understand which month and year was being referred to. The British solution was double year recording. 25 February 1745 in the Gregorian system would be recorded as "25 11 mo. 1744/45," indicating that the date fell in the eleventh month of 1744 on the Julian calendar. This hybrid system caused problems, and the British Calendar Act of 1751 provided for the conversion from the old style in 1752. The first day of the year was changed from 25 March, and it was necessary to remove more days. 3-13 September 1752 were chosen, the end result being that the fourteenth of September followed the second of September. Many Protestant countries followed suit within a few years, but some didn't convert until as late as 1775, and the Eastern Orthodox Church never changed. In 1971 they voted to continue using the Julian system. The Perpetual Hebrew Calendar, which was codified in CE 359, is another independent calendar. It was derived from the Era of Creation, or Era Mundi, and is the official calendar of Israel. This liturgical calendar of Jewish faith records the current year as 5,757. There have been numerous other calendars, such as the Baha'i, Chinese, Egyptian, French Republic, Indian Civil Calendar, Islamic, Mayan, Quaker, Persian, and Rosetta. All of these pose a dilemma for proper date recording. Researchers are easily lulled into entering erroneous dates, and software programs offer little accommodation for dual systems. One solution is to notate an event with a comment or abbreviation, such as N.S. (new style) or O.S. (old style). Another is to use a converter. The RootsWeb Library offers several calendar tools, including a perpetual calendar, a table to determine the day of the week for a particular date, and a chart prepared by Barbara R. Tysinger converting the Old and New Style Quaker dates. To access these, click "ROOTS-L Library," located under the "Other Tools and Resources," heading on the homepage. Then, scroll to "Dates and Calendars." Another RootsWeb calendar feature is "Calendar by RootsWeb." It creates HTML code to display calendars on websites. "Calendar by RootsWeb" also provides links to user calendars based on a variety of subjects: http://resources.rootsweb.com/~calendar/cgi-bin/make_calendar.cgi Outside of RootsWeb, you'll find numerous sites with converters and more on the history of calendars. One of these is Michael Douma's "WebExhibits," an online museum, with exhibits "that encourage people to ask questions and examine issues from several points of view." His "Calendars Through the Ages" page can be found at: http://webexhibits.org/calendars/timeline.html Jewish calendar conversion tools, including "Deciphering Hebrew Tombstone Dates in One Step" and the "Sunrise Sunset Tool," are at Stephen Morse's website: http://stevemorse.org/index.html http://stevemorse.org/jcal/jcal.html Swarthmore Friends Historical Library gives details on Quaker dates and an explanation of why these dates were numbered, but not named: http://www.swarthmore.edu/x7968.xml John Walker, the founder of Autodesk, Inc. and co-author of AutoCad, has published a variety of converters at his "Formilab" website. In addition to Jewish, French Republic, Mayan, and Persian converters, there is an explanation of how spreadsheet dates are calculated in Excel. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/ The more technically minded readers might enjoy his articles on mathematics, astronomy, and the history of his companies, which are linked to the homepage at : http://www.fourmilab.ch/. * * * * * * * * * * Advertisements * * * * * * * * * * REQUEST A SEARCH FOR YOUR ANCESTORS AT WORLD'S LARGEST GENEALOGICAL LIBRARY ANCESTOR SEEKERS researchers at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will search this vast collection for your ancestors from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, or Europe. Friendly service, affordable prices. For a no-obligation research assessment visit: http://www.ancestorseekers.com/research.rwr/ For help from professional genealogists in England or Scotland visit: http://www.britishancestors.com/ Or join us 30 SEPTEMBER-5 OCTOBER for our NINTH SALT LAKE CITY RESEARCH TRIP--the ideal genealogy vacation! * * * * * * * * * * End of Advertisements * * * * * * * 3. Connecting Through RootsWeb: Missing Thief By Kathleen Koziol wscn2@bellsouth.net I live in North Carolina and I had searched for some time for the whereabouts of William Carson Holder, my great-grandfather. I knew he had been arrested for stealing a horse and put in jail. My great- grandmother divorced him and I could never find any record of him again. I tried jail records, prison records, and census records in all states. He just seemed to have disappeared. Finally, I posted his name on a message board. Then, one night, I got a phone call from a man from Arkansas. He said he knew what had happened to Great-Grandpa Holder. He said that Carson Holder was HIS grandfather too, and that he had not only buried Carson, but dug the unmarked grave in Arkansas. Apparently, this ne'er-do-well ancestor had escaped from jail in Missouri, gone back down to Arkansas where he was born, taken his father's first two names and a last name off a mailbox, and started a whole new family. I corresponded with my newfound friend from Arkansas for quite a while and he sent me lots of pictures of his grandpa and other relatives. He told me all about that side of Carson Holder's family. I sent him information and pictures of his grandpa's younger days. The old guy married again later (his third or fourth wife)--this time to the daughter of a judge, who actually got him a pardon later on. Great- grandpa finally came clean on his death bed and told the younger ones the whole story. By the way, his side of the story was that he "borrowed" the horse and lost it in a card game. Anyway, I plan to drive out to Texas for a visit soon and hope to stop in Arkansas on the way and visit his grave and meet all these "Stewarts" (the mailbox name) who are really "Holders." I don't know how I would have ever found out any of this unless I had posted on your boards and he had seen my post. So, thanks for the help. 4. BOTTOMLESS MAILBAG [Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editor or of RootsWeb.com.] ------------------------------------------------------------- Have you thrown or attended a successful (or not so successful) family reunion in the past? RootsWeb would like to know what made the reunion stick out. From planning tips to food to sharing family memories, we want your ideas. Send them to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com Spot Checks Pay Off By Pamela Treme ptreme@AOL.com Land O'Lakes, Florida Grousing about never finding much online for the remote and rural community of Williamsville, Wayne County, Missouri, I google "williamsville wayne county genealogy" anyway. To my utter surprise a new site pops up: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wcmc/ The description promises cemetery photographs. Cynic that I am, I assume that the site has three or four pictures, but I think, "What the heck? You've come this far. Click the link." My click brings me to a site with lots of ferns, an "under construction" notice, and a few "partial" notations. "Great," I think, "another site to wade through." I know that I have McKees in the Holladay Cemetery because of earlier correspondence with a Wayne County genealogist. I immediately spot that cemetery on the list and select the link. The page opens with a well- framed, clear photograph of the cemetery entrance at the top of the page. This looks promising. As I scroll down, I find McKees on the list and click a link. A vivid photograph of a grave marker displays. I gleefully copy the high-quality photograph, which is easy to save. And I get a bonus. Larry and Sharon Hackworth, the photographers, took a photograph of the grave marker of a McKee wife that I knew existed but knew nothing else about. With this photograph, I have her first name and dates of birth and death--vital statistics that should help me target my search for more information about her. The site notes that Larry and Sharon have been spending most of their weekends wandering around Iron and Wayne counties taking photographs of graves. I for one am grateful that they have decided to spend their free time on this pursuit. I've immediately benefited from their endeavors and I'll be lurking on their site to see what else turns up. The chances of me having the opportunity to get to this far-flung part of Missouri anytime soon are not good. So finding these photographs adds great detail to my family history, a detail that I would otherwise not have. I'd like to send a great big thank you to Larry and Sharon Hackworth for a job well done. * * * Soundex Screw-ups By Leopold Hoenig New York, U.S.A. Last week an article discussing Soundex was printed in the Review. Soundex can be useful, but it isn't foolproof. Here's an example. A few years ago my wife received a letter from a major insurance company informing her they were confirming her "change of address." Having lived (and still living) in our apartment for decades, we were both startled to find out she had "left" our home for a new habitat about a mile away. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) knew nothing about her "change of address." The insurance company looked into the matter only after I exerted lots of pressure on them. The result? They had hired a private contractor to compare their mailing lists with the National Change of Address List promulgated by USPS. This contractor used a Soundex-type method for the comparisons, using the zip code, first letter or letters of the first and middle names, the first letter of the last name, plus all the consonants in the rest of the last name. Thus, when someone named D.C. Hoang in our zip code moved, the insurance company's contractor determined it was my wife, D.C. Hoenig, who had moved. I found out that some 16,000 errors were made this way by the contractor. This might be acceptable to a large, major insurance firm, but never to a legitimate genealogist. To read last week's article on Soundex, "Soundex, Metaphone, and Fuzzy Searches in WorldConnect," visit: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/review/2007/0530.txt * * * Furthering the Debate on Archival-Quality Data By Faye Guthrie Melbourne, Australia I have to agree that computerised storage formats eventually become obsolete. Some years ago the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies, of which I am a past president, encouraged members to submit their family trees on 5 1/4" floppy disks, along with paper copies. No prizes for guessing which is the most used resource now. A friend of mine believes that we will always be able to read microfiche with a candle and a magnifying glass, but I've never been game to try it. You can find the instructions on how to make your own film reader at: http://www.us-census.org/resources/homemade.htm Better print out a copy now for future reference. * * * Digital Archiving Reconsidered By G. David Thayer Sarasota, Florida I have read all of the notes and letters about archiving data in digital form with some amusement. The medium on which digitized data are stored is, basically, irrelevant. To borrow a phrase from De Beers, digital data are forever. I keep mine in a number of places: on my hard drive (which has a RAID mirror in case of a catastrophe), on a pair of rotating external hard disks (one of which is always in a safety deposit box at my bank), and on some flash memory sticks. When some new and better medium becomes available, I will use that too. Advances in storage technology always overlap. 5 1/4" floppies coexisted with 31/2" "stiffies" for years before becoming totally obsolete. CDs have coexisted with DVDs for a number of years now. The idea is to transfer your digital data from one format to the next before the old one becomes obsolete and unreadable. This can always be done. Archival quality paper is nice, but it too can burn. Witness the sad fate of the 1890 census. Only digital data can be truly said to last forever, provided they are always transferred to newer media before the older media are no longer accessible. As to formats, they also overlap. My image editor supports thirty-one different data formats, ranging from the old (bitmaps, Windows Paint, TIFF, etc.) to the new (JPEG 2000, Portable Network Graphics, etc.). Transferring a digital file from one format to another is as simple as selecting "Save As" from the File menu and picking the new format from the drop-down list. With a little forethought, nobody should ever lose any digital data. Sadly, the same cannot be said of paper records. So let us not argue over the longevity of digital media, since that is not the crux of the problem. 300 years from now your CDs will be worthless junk. Let us hope the same cannot be said for the digitized images of your data, which should be alive and well. 5. New at RootsWeb 5a. New User-contributed Databases at RootsWeb http://userdb.rootsweb.com/submit/ ------------------------------------------------------------- No New User-contributed Databases 5b. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages by Individuals To Request a Free Web Account: http://accounts.rootsweb.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- Can your cousins find your website at RootsWeb? Has it ever been mentioned here or do you have a new, updated, or substantially revised website at RootsWeb (it will have "freepages" or "homepages" in the URL)? Send the URL, the title of the website, the name of the author, and a BRIEF description of the site, including major surnames, to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com * * * If your genealogical or historical related site is located somewhere other than at RootsWeb.com, you can add the link here: http://resources.rootsweb.com/~rootslink/addlink.html * * * No New/Updated Freepages and Homepages by Individuals 5c. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages by Counties, States, and Genealogical/Historical Societies To Request a Free Web Account: http://accounts.rootsweb.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- Some of these Web pages might not yet be accessible. They are created by volunteers, so if one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or next week. http://www.rootsweb.com/~xxxxxx[accountname] * * * Note that the ~[tilde] before the Web account name is required. For example, the Irvine (California) Chapter DAR website is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~caicdar/ * * * DAR = Daughters of the American Revolution DU = Daughters of the Union 1861-65 DRT = Daughters of the Republic of Texas USGW = USGenWeb County Account U.S.A. caicdar -- Irvine (California) Chapter DAR fltocdar -- Tomoka (Florida) Chapter DAR gabacon -- Bacon County (Georgia) USGW gachandl -- Chandler County (Georgia) USGW gaclinch -- Clinch County (Georgia) USGW gajeffda -- Jeff Davis County (Georgia) USGW ilgfe -- Genealogical Forum of Elmhurst (Illinois) kybjcm -- Bon Jellico Coal Mine (Kentucky) USGW macnorth -- City of Northborough (Massachusetts) mihfcdu -- Hannibal Ferrell (Michigan) Chapter DU mtpowell -- Powell County (Montana) USGW ohca -- Ohio Cemetery Alliance riaicdar -- Aquidneck Island (Rhode Island) Chapter DAR txgcc -- Grimes County Cemetery (Texas) txsfadrt -- Stephen F. Austin (Texas) Chapter DRT 5d. New Mailing Lists To Request a New Mailing List: http://resources.rootsweb.com/adopt/ ------------------------------------------------------------- For information and an index to the more than 30,000 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy Mailing Lists and for easy subscribing (joining) options go to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS No New Surname Mailing Lists NEW REGIONAL MAILING LISTS No New Regional Mailing Lists NEW ETHNIC AND SPECIAL INTEREST MAILING LISTS No New Ethnic and Special Interest Mailing Lists 6. Humor/Humour While on a Globus bus tour of Ireland we had an overnight stay in Sligo, County Mayo. Our tour guide, Patricia, mentioned that there was a law office with the name of Argue and Fibs. My wife and I took a before- dinner stroll and, sure enough, across the street from the courthouse there was a brass plaque on the wall next to the doorway of a law office that read "Argue and Phibbs." --Thanks to Norm Lyons * * * I worked in a health care field with frequent patient contact and when I worked with a patient whose given name was Buena Vista, I remarked that it was an unusual name. I asked if she happened to have been born in Buena Vista, Colorado. She said yes, she had been named for her birthplace, and I then said, "Oh, aren't you glad you weren't born in Poughkeepsie, New York?" I decided to terminate this line of conversation when she said that that was where her father was born. --Thanks to Gladys Tolbert * * * Found a funny or "proper name for the job" in old records, or an amusing entry in census, parish, church, etc. records? Send them to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. We also welcome other humorous genealogy-related submissions. 7. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints ------------------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIPTIONS. To manage your e-mail communications (i.e. to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, or to sign up for others), visit our newsletter management center any time at: http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ If you use a spam-filtering program, in order to receive the RootsWeb Review please make sure that you're allowing e-mail from: rootswebreview@email.rootsweb.com The RootsWeb Review is a free publication of The Generations Network, Inc., 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT, 84604 * * * The RootsWeb Review does not publish or answer genealogical queries, and the editor regrets that she is unable to provide any personal research assistance or advice. RootsWeb Review welcomes short (500 words or less) articles, humor, stories, or letters, and reserves the right to edit all submissions. The announcement of books and products is provided as a community service and is not an endorsement in any way. All mail sent to the RootsWeb Review editor is considered to be for publication--send in plain text (please, no attachments) to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com and please include your full name and e-mail address in the text. * * * ROOTSWEB REVIEW ADVERTISING CONTACTS. Ad Sales Worldwide: Tami Deleeuw, tdeleeuw@tgn.com * * * REPRINTS. Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, provided: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 06 June 2007, Vol. 10, No. 23. * * * *