The Genealogy Guys Podcast & Genealogy Connection

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 [email protected] 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: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.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:- ShoeboxReprints.com/ScanMyPhotos.com (http://www.scanmyphotos.com)- Blosser's Camera and Portrait Studio (http://www.blossers.com) Call for pricing scale- Chris' Camera Center (http://www.chriscamera.com)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:Loretto "Lou" Dennis Szucs receives the Silver Tray Award from the Utah Genealogical Association.Ancestry.com includes new London-related content, including Births, Baptisms, Deaths, Burials, and Poor Law Records.Leland Meitzler includes a calendar on his blog at genealogyblog.com.The National Archives (UK) adds new information about Henry VIII.The National Archives (US) at Kansas City, Missouri relocates to the Union Station Complex.Readex, a division of NewsBank, adds a new product line : American Newspaper Archives.WorldVitalRecords.com reveals an improved search and browse function.The Ontario Genealogical Society will be holding its OGS Conference 2009 on May 29-31 at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario.The Purcell Family of America has a new website at www.pfaroots.org and a Purcell surname DNA project (contact Doug Purcell at [email protected])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).George meets someone at the front door with information about Census 2010.A listener describes using Google's Picasa Web Albums to store and share photo albums.A listener asks about the availability of New FamilySearch (because RootsMagic 4 provides a way to access it when it becomes available).The CEO of Sampa Corporation contacts the Genealogy Guys to describe a free service to share life events with family and friends.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.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.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.Ian Pereira lets us know about his company's free book publishing site at HowTo.co.uk.A listener asks for advice for a first-time visit to a national genealogy conference.A listener asks about how to proceed with a DNA test that may confirm a family story.A listener asks about pension files and NARA.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.

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: Elizabeth Shown Mills has a new QuickSheet out. It is titled, "Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images," and it is the perfect quick reference for your source citations for Ancestry.com data. It is available from Genealogical Publishing Company (http://www.genealogical.com). 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.

The Guys wish all their listeners a wonderful holiday season!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.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.

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com launches the world's largest collection of Jewish documents; they also have added French collections at their Ancestry.fr site: Paris, France, & Vicinity Births, marriages, Deaths, marriage Banns -- AND -- to their UK site at http://www.ancestry.co.uk the UK incoming Passenger Lists (1878-1920); the National Library of Australia has launched Australia Newspapers at http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au; Ancestry.com has won the contract to digitize and host key collections from the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) and the Guildhall Library, representing more than 500 years of records (more details of the content are available at http://www.history.ac.uk/gh/digitisation.htm); The National Archives (TNA) in the U.K. is using Digital Microfilm to make available remote access to four series of military records.Drew announced that George's newest book, the second edition of The Official Guide to Ancestry.com, has just been released, and it is available at the Ancestry Store.Drew shares "11 Creative Ways to Pay Homage to the Dead" from the Life Hackery blog at http://lifehackery.com/2008/11/03/life-26/. This week's listener email includes: Sherry visited a courthouse to access her great-grandfather's probate file, and found that these records are being digitized and will then be thrown away. (She was given her great-grandfather's probate file.); Peter asked about the eBook of Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained, and wants to know if it has Digital Rights Management [Listeners can respond if they know.]; Ian asked about how to cite a source using a location that no longer exists (i.e., Prussia); Gus reports on the status of his search for his grandfather, Vere Preston Marsh; "William comments on huge GEDCOMs on Ancestry.com, and asks about uploading his own research; Claire reports on a new iPhone application (app) that allows people to load a GEDCOM's contents to the iPhone and take it along (George is trying to get this loaded and will report back); Joel suggests that Barry's search in the 1900 U.S. federal census in Kentucky might be aided by using the new upload at http://search.labs.familysearch.org or at Stephen P. Morse's site at http://www.stevemorse.org/census/index.html; Russ asks questions concerning primary and secondary sources, and about using the "complete event;" and Sam shares his concerns about his grandmother's real name and the many spellings in different records throughout her life.George reports the death on 1 November 2008 of singing sensation Yma Sumac at the estimated age of 86. Miss Sumac, born in Peru, had a phenomenal 6-octave singing voice and had a wonderful recording career in the 1950s and 1960s, and then a cabaret act in the 1970s and 1980s.

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com has renamed its self-publishing tool from AncestryPress to MyCanvas, and has also doubled its yearbook collection; ItsOurTree.com announced that its site (http://www.itsourtree.com/) can help predict male baldness through members' postings of family photographs; FamilyRelatives.com (http://familyrelatives.com/), a subscription website, has one of the largest collections of Irish records on the Internet, and they announced that they plan to add more than 10 million new records by the end of the year; Footnote.com (http://www.footnote.com) has begun to publish digitized and indexed Civil War Widows' Pension Files; the University of Michigan has announced that it has digitized and indexed 428 titles in its Michigan County Histories and Atlases Digitization Project, and the search template is available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty/; and Geni.com (http://www.geni.com/) has announced enhanced search facilities and improved privacy at its website. Finally, the Wall Street Journal published an article on 22 October 2008 about University of Texas El Paso, librarian Claudia Rivers, who has formed an aggressive program to identify 50,000 photographs taken bythe closed Cassola photography studio. Check the WSJ site for an article published on that date titled, "In Old El Paso, This Detective Story Is Written in Pictures."George announces that Ancestry.com has just received copies of his new book, the new second edition of The Official Guide to Ancestry.com in its warehouse the end of this past week. Ancestry.com's online store will be listing the book and advertising it for sale very soon.George interviews Gary M. Smith and Diana Crissman Smith, two of his fellow speakers on the recent RootsMagic Cruise.Listener email this week includes: a thank you and report from Pat (Ms. DNA Manners) about communicating with people with potential genetic genealogy matches; a question from Pattie concerning obtaining SS-5 applications for deceased relatives whose deaths predate the SSDI database; Drew responds to Ann about the Harvey Girls, and provides a link to the Harvey Girl Historical Society (http://www.oerm.org/pages/Harveygirls.html); Robert Reeve of VideoJug has contacted us to say that their website has more than 43,000 free videos, including a number concerning genealogy (located at http://www.videojug.com/tag/genealogy); Michael tells us about his Dutch genealogical research, and asks about the benefits of seeking genealogical certification; and Sandra asked for advice about how to organize the many family letters and other documents she has in her possession.

This week's news includes:Art Lassagne, founder of The Gold Bug (producer of AniMap software), died on 29 September 2008 at his home after a long battle with lung cancer; Ancestry.ca has published the Canadian Passenger Lists (1865-1935); the Godfrey Library (www.godfrey.org) of Middletown, CT, announced that its product, the online American Genealogical Biographical Index (AGBI), will no longer be available at Ancestry.com after the end of this year, but it will be available at the Godfrey Library and at World Vital Records (www.worldvitalrecords.com) beginning in January 2009; Northern Hills Software (www.northernhillssoftware.com) announces Pocket Genealogist Version 3.3 for Windows Mobile devices which includes support for multimedia; Summit County Ohio Probate Court received a grant to digitize and index to birth, marriage, and death records, and those records will be available at their website and those of their partners, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, and the National Association of Government Archive and Records Administrators (NAGARA); the St. Petersburg Times in Florida has brought up it digital archives of more than 100 years of its newspapers (May 1901 through August 2007) and it is available at news.google.com/archivesearch (Users should type "St. Petersburg Times" before they enter their query terms.); Dick Eastman, of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (blog.eogn.com), has announced the addition of Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck to the writing team at the enormously popular online publication [George also writes a weekly column for Dick]; and the free 12th annual Central Florida Family History Conference will be held on 25 October 2009 in Orlando, and more details are available at www.familyhistoryconference.org. Listener email includes: Gus added this podcast to his site at www.macapart.com/gen; Jon asked for more information about portability of Family Tree Make 2009 on a flash drive (and Drew will report back); Russ recounts his search for his grandfather in the 1900 census and discusses names; Kevin reminded The Guys to remind our listeners to celebrate October as Family History Month and as Hispanic Heritage Month; Tim asked for suggestions concerning the best national or regional conferences to consider attending for a relative beginner; and Dee found a great online out-of-copyright map site at commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_maps.George interviews Bruce Buzbee, creator of the RootsMagic genealogical database software. Bruce discusses this year's great cruise to the Mexican Riviera and talks about the upcoming release of RootsMagic Version 4, a complete rewrite of the software with many exciting new features and improvements.

While George relaxes on a cruise ship off the Pacific coast of Mexico (ok, so he's doing some genealogy lecturing on the RootsMagic 2008 cruise), Drew handles the entire podcast himself (not even assisted by the cats). News items include the Louisiana Death Records Index for 1911-1956, a new partnering between 23andMe and Ancestry.com, GenealogyFreelancers.com (a new reverse auction company), the beta launch of Footnote's Footnote Pages service, the efforts by Google to digitize newspaper archives, the appointment of former eBay executive Eric Shoup as Ancestry.com's new Vice President of Product, the acquisition of Kindo by MyHeritage, the launch of Louis Kessler's new genealogy software review site GenSoftReviews, a site for those interested in access to Pennsylvania records (PaHR-Access), and Matt Combs' new "Surname Suggestion List" software.Additional listener e-mail asks about the proper etiquette for following up possible DNA surname project matches, how to get episodes of the Genealogy Guys Podcast onto a Zune mp3 player, why episodes of the Genealogy Guys Podcast have changed genres from "Speech" to "Podcast", feedback on the pronunciation of "Scituate" in Massachusetts, a query about genealogy software that would work with both a Windows system and an iPhone, a question about genealogy software designed to work with the new familysearch.org family trees, how a subscriber to Ancestry.ca got a database access problem resolved quickly, and some feedback about the new music used during the Genealogy Guys Podcast.Finally, Drew shares his interview with Ann Mitchell, Ancestry.com's expert on the new search facility, recorded at the recent Federation of Genealogical Societies' conference in Philly.

This week's news includes: The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) recognized genealogists with achievement awards at the FGS Conference in Philadelphia; FGS also recognized two outstanding awards at the same conference; The Genealogy Seminar at the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, IN, is holding Military Symposium 2008 on 26 and 27 September, with speaker Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CG, CL, from NARA; the PublicProfiler site (http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/Main.aspx) allows you to enter a surname and view a map showing the distribution across the world and statistics.Reader email this week includes: Loretta asks a question about the meaning of a tattoo; Sherry asks about locating older birth records in Texas and Indian Territory; Barb relates a story of how being in a particular place and time can inextricably alter your family history; and Barbara asks questions about Ancestry.com's World Archive Project. (Listen to the interview with The Generations Network's CEO, Tim Sullivan, in episode 150.) Drew interviews J. Mark Lowe, CG, at the FGS Conference. Mark is a candidate for president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). The Guys discuss the success of their local society's recent gala 50th anniversary banquet and annual Fall Seminar with Paula Stuart-Warren, CG.

CELEBRATING OUR 150TH EPISODE!The Guys are celebrating the 150th episode of the podcast which began on 4 September 2005. Thank you for listening and sharing with all of us!This week's news includes: The Generations Network, Inc., announced that Ancestry.com has launched the World Archives Project, "a global public indexing initiative to give everyone the opportunity to help preserve historical records" at http://www.ancestry.com/worldarchivesproject/; Geni.com (http://www.geni.com) announced that the firm has exceeded 1 million unique visitors to the site; the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), working through the General Services Administration (GSA), has announced plans to lease a new facility in St. Louis, Missouri, to house the Military Personnel records Center, with occupancy scheduled for March 2010; Ancestry.co.uk (http://www.ancestry.co.uk/) has been chosen to host the most comprehensive historical collection of London records -- 77 million names -- covering 500 years (ca. 1500-2006) online, beginning in early 2009. The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released new results about podcasting, reflecting significant increases in downloading podcasts. (See the PDF report at http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Podcast_2008_Memo.pdf.)Links that were omitted from the show notes in Episode #149 include:- Scottish genealogy records : http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk- Indexes to Scotland's censuses: http://www.ancestry.co.uk- The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS): http://www.gro-scotland.gov.ukListener email this week includes: Randy bought a Sansa Fuse MP3 player to listen to the podcast; Amelia shared a podcast from BBC4 in England, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/tracingyourroots.shtml; Barb shared another reason for the changing of names -- scandal (see http://www.rood.net/Gen1-2.pdf); Kay shares information about testing for Indian ancestry, and a genetic testing company called DNAPrint Genomics, Inc. (http://www.ancestrybydna.com); Sharon discovered a wonderful genealogist through a mailing list who shared huge amounts of genealogical data with her; and Barb discusses a "possible paternity event" in her husband's family.George reviews an excellent new book by Kevan M. Hansen, the new second edition of Map Guide to German Parish Records: Grandduchy of Baden, published by Family Roots Publishing Company.

A correction to last week's story about the death of a Confederate widow can be found in last week's show notes.The news this week includes: an update about the collapsed project to digitise the UK's GRO's Birth, Marriage, and Death records from 1837 forward; the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) will be moving its office to a new home in central Belfast; the National Archives of Australia in Canberra plans to make almost all 7 million immigration records available online in the next several years (click here to learn more); and a new genealogy social network site, Genetree, is up and running at http://www.genetree.com.This week's rich collection of listener email includes: Sharon's use of Bloglines.com to catch all of here URLs for her day's work; Valerie wrote to say she is 24 and a listener to the podcast (another young listener!); Laraine wrote to discuss her confusing marriage and birth situations for her Putnam family; Tom asked for opinions about when to prune the family tree; Betty asks about the benefits of subscribing to Genealogy.com, and The Guys ask for feedback from listeners; the Grand Traverse Genealogy Society has published a CD of cemeteries in its area at http://grandtraverseregion.com/gtags/cem_rural_flier.htm; The Guys' latest episode of "Down Under: Florida" is "The Miltons, and George's case study titled "The Milton Family Tragedy" has just been published in Family Chronicle Magazine; Michael shares information about his ancestor, John K. Zacherle, a TV horror show TV host from New York who was a candidate in the 1960 presidential election (listen to an MP3 of his campaign ad at http://www.zacherle.com/President.mp3); Gus reports that his niece, Alyssa Skalski, is possibly the youngest listener to this podcast at age 14; Rich asks about the inability to upload PDF files to the Ancestry.com famiy tree; Ben Sayer provides a terrific primer at his blof site (http://MacGenealogist.com) about secrets to digitally restoring family photos and uses one of Drew's treasured family photos as an example (He uses iPhoto for Mac but there are certainly other excellent PC and Mac programs, but Ben provides an excellent overview.); Maureen discusses George's article for Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter titled "The Legacy of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic"; Roger (Marathon Man) discusses multimedia file usage in Family Tree Maker; and Sean shares an intensive blog article he wrote titled "10 Essential Steps to Protecting Your Family History Data".Drew discusses the genealogical stories about Today Show hosts Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, and Al Roker with expert genealogist Maureen Taylor.Don't miss joining us for our 150th Episode!

This week's news includes: Alberta Martin [Oops, correction, this should have been Maudie Hopkins], 93, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died Monday, 18 August 2008, in a nursing home in Enterprise, Alabama; Footnote.com (http://www.footnote.com) has announced membership price increases effective 1 September 2008 ($11.95 per month or $69.95 annual membership); American scientists have studied 32 people who lived through the 1918 influenza pandemic and have found that antibodies in their blood still protect them against the virus; and The Genealogy Gems Podcast, hosted by Lisa Louise Cooke, celebrated its 50th episode with an interview with NPR Radio's Prairie Home Companion actor Tim Russell, and featured comments from other podcast hosts, including The Guys.This week's listener email includes: the distinction between the words "immigration" and "emigration"; Patti opines about a family case in which mt-DNA testing might be used to refute the family myth that a female ancestor had Indian blood (and high cheekbones); more favorable comments about The Guys' newest episode of "Down Under: Florida" at RootsTelevision.com -- "The Miltons"; the oldest family tree dates back 3,000 years in the Lichtenstein Cave near Dorste, Lower Saxony, Germany, and Y-DNA samples taken from some of the 20 skeletons there have produced a match with 2 local villagers; Rich shares an interesting way of digitizing your photos in an article by David Pogue from the New York Times (click here to access the article); Kay asks George about his Cleveland (Bradley County) Tennessee connections; in the UK, a government-sponsored contracted project with German company Siemans to scan all of the birth, marriage, and death records in the GRO has collapsed less than half way through; Sharon asks for suggestions on how to better organize and focus her research; Gus asks for suggestions for finding his grandfather's burial location in or near Virginia, Minnesota; and Jason believes that, at age 26, he may be our youngest listener, and he is interested in career opportunities in Genealogy.Drew discusses his research into an Italian immigrant and his family members, and spelling variations that he uncovered.

This episode is dedicated to our dear friend, Tom Ryder, who passed away today in Port Charlotte, Florida.This week's news includes: Ancestry.com extends its global reach to China with an exclusive partnership with the Shanghai Library - the new site is http://www.jiapu.cn; and Ancestry has also added extensive new content, including Bremen, Germany, ships and sailors databases (in German).A new episode of "Down Under: Florida" has been released at RootsTelevision.com, starring The Guys. Click here to go directly to the episode about "The Miltons." Note: The Genealogy Guys Podcast's fans at Facebook.com got an email as soon as the new episode was released!Listener email this week included: Roger (Marathon Man) shared information about school censuses and cited a database of these from Kent County, Michigan, at http://data.wmgs.org/SchoolCensus/ with samples to view; Confederate service records are available and accessible at Footnote.com (various states are still being added); Kay shared another family story about a son who acidently shot his father; a listener asked about how to locate Web pages that have disappeared, and The Guys provided some methods, including the use of the Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org/), a part of the fascinating Internet Archive; Richard shares a response from the Millennium Corporation about available genealogy software it produces for mobile devices; the USCIS has established a new genealogy program for obtaining immigration and naturalization records, rather than requesting them through the Freedom of Information Office - click here to go to the USCIS site; Connor has compiled an index to newspaper records and asks advice for how to disseminate the information; Laraine writes about her experiences visiting her old hometown of Marietta, Ohio, and the importance of citing sources; the Fulton County Genealogical Society has a new home for its genealogy collection in the Evergreen Community Library in Metamora, Ohio. In last week's episode, George reviewed a new book by Timothy N. Pinnick, Finding and Using African American Newspapers. Unfortunately, he included an incorrect URL for Tim Pinnick's website. It should have been http://www.blackcoalminerheritage.net. It's been corrected in last week's show notes, but please visit his site for details about the great little book.Drew discusses his new volunteer assignment as editor of the Federation of Genealogical Societies' Delegate Digest, an monthly email newsletter sent to the delegates of FGS member societies. This is a great benefit to having your society be a member of FGS.Drew also discusses CAPTCHAs (corrected spelling), the images containing letters and numbers that we all type in at Web sites to provide security from hackers. People are now working with OCR'd books to interpret problem characters and making the indexes correct.

This week's news includes: archaeologists are actively working to locate the identities of everyone interred at Fairview Cemetery, an African American cemetery in Staunton, Virginia; DNA Heritage (http://www.dnaheritage.com/) has succeeded in overcoming a patent claim in the U.K. that will allow them to continue providing genetic genealogy testing; Tribal Junction (http://www.tribaljunction.com/) has announced a new social networking and genealogy connections site; Synium Software (http://www.synium.de), makers of MacFamilyTree software, has announced the release of MobileFamilyTree, an app for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch products -- the app is $4.99 at the Apple iTunes store (http://www.itunes.com); Leister Productions (http://www.leisterpro.com/), makers of Reunion genealogy software, has announced that it is working on a version of Reunion for the iPhone and iPod Touch and, when ready, will offer it as an app in the iTunes store; Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) and the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov) have been collaborating with a project called "The Commons" at http://www.flickr.com/commons/ where people can view photos, comment on them, and tag them. The Commons provides access to the LOC collection and more are being added, making this a premier destination on the web.Digital Genealogist, a terrific online e-zine, is published 6 times a year and delivered to your e-mailbox in PDF format. Both of The Guys write articles for DG and are joined by some of the greatest, most technology knowledgeable people in the genealogy community. Learn more at http://www.digitalgenealogist.com/. Our listener email this week includes: Tim Skinner, whose e-mail we read on episode #143 (7/7) concerning using Google Maps to trace ancestors' movements, wrote again to ask us to share the Web address (http://www.familytreeassistant.com) for his software, Map My Ancestors; Judy wrote to ask about the wisdom of adding digitized photos to Family Tree Maker and other programs; Michelle asked if NARA had information about substitute soldiers for both the Union and Confederate armies; Tim wrote about he availability of genealogy-specific back-up sites; Bill also wrote to tell us that FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org) has published Ohio Death Records (1905-1953) in their Record Search Pilot; Patti reports that she has been working on the Home Study Course offered by the National Genealogical Society and that, as a result of refocusing on her source citations, she has made a huge breakthrough AND has been doing the Genealogy Happy Dance; and Sharon is a new fan and asked for The Guys' recommendations for the best genealogy database software program. Joel Weintraub, an association of Steve Morse and the One Step Website, wrote to describe another technique for digitizing microfilm. View the article at Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter of 19 February and please read the comments, especially those of Joel's.George reviewed a great new book by Timothy N. Pinnick, Finding and Using African American Newspapers. George has been aggressively promoting the addition of African American newspapers and publications to libraries' and archives' collections. The John F. Germany Public Library has been trying to obtain copies of African American newspapers on microfilm and microfilm from the University of Florida's libraries in Gainesville, and has met with resistance and refusal for several years. I and other people believe that the hoarding of such materials and refusing to allow for replication (at the JFG's offered expense) is an unconscionable act that prevents the open access of information to the originating community. Tim Pinnick's book is an excellent reference for every genealogical library collection and for every African-ancestored individual who seeks to learn more about his or her ancestors' records as included in newspapers. More information and an extract of the book are available at Tim Pinnick's website at http://www.blackcoalminerheritage.net and atGregath Publishing Company at http://www.gregathcompany.com/. Congratulations, Tim, on a very fine addition to our reference resources!The Guys talked about three conferences at which you can meet one or both of them.The Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference will take place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 3-6 September 2008. Online registrations end on 22 August 2008 but registrations will continue on-site at the conference. Look at http://www.fgsconference.org/rebate/ to learn about society discounts when multiple members of your society attend!The Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) will celebrate its 50th Anniversary with a full-day Fall Seminar with the fabulous Paula Stuart-Warren giving four excellent lectures. Paula is a master genealogical researcher, author, and speaker. She also will provide the dinner speech at the Gala 50th Anniversary Banquet the night before. (Seating is limited.) For more information, please visit the FGS Tampa website a

This week's news includes: FamilySearch and Ancestry.com team up to publish new images and enhanced indexes to the U.S. federal censuses; Ancestry.com announces a number of new databases and upgraded collections; GeneTree (http://www.genetree.com) adds a Y-chromosome testing option to its site; Geni.com (http://www.geni.com) announces the addition of a new and private video-sharing option for families at its site; and Modern Genealogy president, Jeromy L. Walsh, thanks The Guys for announcing their forthcoming beta test of their new genealogy database software, and he restated the company's commitment to having users involved in developing and testing their program.Listener email this week includes: an inquiry concerning the availability of genealogy software for the Blackberry; a reminder of how to access, play, and download our previous podcasts (using the POD icon to the left of each episode's title); several emails from listeners telling George about the availability of Ohio Death Certificates (1908-1953) at the FamilySearch Labs site (http://search.labs.familysearch.org/); a discussion of a genealogy filing system by source; using an iPod shuffle (~ $40) vs. a more expensive player when mowing the lawn and listening to the podcast; and a discussion of why some stores with photocopy facilities will not copy (or allow copying) of photographs.George announces that the third episode of RootsTelevision.com's series, Down Under: Florida with The Genealogy Guys will be debuting in mid-August. In tandem with its premiere, George has written a case study, "The Milton Family Tragedy," for Family Chronicle Magazine. The issue containing this article will appear on newsstands at about the same time in August. The story describes the behind-the-scenes research involved in filming the story, and it includes a couple of additional surprises.George discusses the Asus Eee PC, a small PC loaded with Windows XP, that is lightweight, fully functional, and has Wi-Fi. You can take this little gem with you almost everywhere with your entire genealogy database and all the multimedia resources. The price makes this little PC a very attractive item. Visit AsusTEK at http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164 for more details, and then use your favorite search engine to search for "asus eee" to locate the best place and lowest price to purchase.Drew recommends that subscribers to genealogy mailing lists be sure to use a "plain text" setting in their e-mail software in order to prevent strange characters appearing in their messages. He also describes his experiences in using microform equipment that scans an image for use in e-mailing or saving to a USB flash drive (instead of printing the image).Drew discusses a book he is reading: Brittania's Children: Emigration from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales Since 1600, by Eric Richards.

This week's news includes: Abraham Lincoln's ancestry is questioned; Ancestry.com announces new databases, including WI Death Index (1959-1997), NC Death Certificates (1909-1975), TN Divorces (1800-1865), and U.S. Colored Troops Service Records (Civil War); The Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) celebrates its 50th anniversary; Modern Genealogy (http://www.moderngenealogy.com) announces a new database for Windows XP and Vista and invites people to assist as beta testers; Genlighten (http://www.genlighten.com) is building a network of people to look up and obtain copies of documents at a reasonable cost; FamilyRelatives.com (http://www.familyrelatives.com/) has added lots of new British Isles trade and court directories to its site; The National Archives (TNA) in the U.K. has completed renovations and has reorganized its facility to accommodate the addition of the Family Records Centre materials, and urges people to check out the changes at their site at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/; the National Library of Ireland (http://www.nli.ie) has unveiled a new exhibition about William Butler Yeats and a virtual tour can be viewed at their website; and Microsoft has anounced the closure of its Live Search Books project. Listener email this week includes: How does one become a doctor in 5 years or less?; using the My Maps feature of Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/) to trace and map your ancestors' movements; Helen Parkhurst of the World Burial Index (http://www.worldburialindex.com) shares information about this subscription database for searching cemetery monumental inscriptions across England and elsewhere; a discussion of people listed multiple times on the census -- and an example with Amelia Earhart; tracing substitute soldiers and the men in whose stead they fought; the National Geographic Genographic Project; origins of unusual first names; how will same sex marriages change genealogy and software; and the delights of moving to broadband.There are a number of genealogy software packages for PDAs and SmartPhones that run the Palm or WindowsMobile operating systems. These allow you to load your genealogy data files on the devices and take it with you. George and Drew issue a challenge to software developers to provide the equivalent software apps (applications) for the Apple iPhone and for Blackberry devices.Natalie of Ogden, Utah, provided the following weblinks for all our listeners:Western States Marriage Record Index (abish.byui.edu/specialcollections/westernstates/search.cfm)Free Birth & Death Certificates for Arizona (genealogy.az.gov) Utah Digital Newspapers (www.lib.utah.edu/digital/unews/)Illinois Statewide Death Index (www.ilsos.gov/GenealogyMWeb/idphdeathsrch.html)

This week's news includes: George Washington's boyhood home is found; and new features are unveiled at MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com).Listener e-mail includes: a recap about Henri Guest Scott and the Scott family; Panoramio (http://www.panoramio.com) allows you to place photos on Google Earth and Google Maps; Laraine got a headstone for her great-grandfather and gained information from a cousin; Carolyn sought help with locating her great-grandmother and Drew addresses some possibilities; our friend Jeane sent was contacted about a family bible on eBay and, while she lost the bid, she made an invaluable connection with another researcher; JoAnne Rockower of Geni.com (http://www.geni.com) e-mailed about our time together in California; and The Guys received a great spreadsheet of past podcasts' links and will be evaluating them for use on the website.The Guys discuss the terrific Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree in Burbank. They begin with a fascinating interview with Karie Bible, our guide for a fascinating tour of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. (Look for Karie at http://www.cemeterytour.com.) And listen afterwards for what Karie does every August 23rd at 12:10 PM! Wow!Jamboree included terrific presentations, meals, and enjoyable activities. George participated in the Blogger Summit with some new and old friends. Listen to more about it.Enjoy Sharyn's terrific and enjoyable song from Jamboree.Finally, The Guys discuss changing over to FIOS, and Drew reports that HP has finally sent him the memory they owed him for his replacement tablet PC.

This week's news includes: the new Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri, opened on 21 June; Footnote.com has announced a new, popular, and forthcoming database titles; Synium Software (http://www.synium.de/products/index.html) announces the new version 5.2 of its MacFamilyTree software which includes a 3-D family tree view; Geni.com (http://www.geni.com/home) announced that it has increased its GEDCOM file support to 15,000 individuals. Listener e-mail includes: a question about the availability of a consolidated list of all of The Guys' podcast links (not available); more comments and suggestions for George, who recently switched from a PC to a Mac; Drew discusses an article in the April 2008 edition of Smithsonian Magazine titled "To Catch a Thief"; forensic genealogy and author Colleen Fitzpatrick; RootsTelevision.com is seeking volunteer case coordinators for its "Unclaimed Persons" project.The Guys discuss the situation in which the State of California's Department of Public Health' Laboratory Field Services Office issued 13 cease-and-desist letters to biotech companies in that state performing clinical DNA testing. These are NOT related to the DNA marker tests that genealogists obtain for research purposes, and none of those testing services was included in this action. The Guys announce their new Facebook site for fans of "The Genealogy Guys Podcast".Drew discusses Ahnentafels, also known as the Sosa-Stradonitz System, for genealogical numbering and reporting. There will be no podcast next week as The Guys will be in Burbank, California participating at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree.

This week's news includes: Ancestry.com announces the doubling of its digitized newspaper collection; and Genealogy Online, Inc., announces that a new online edition of Everton's Genealogical Helper will debut on July 1st, with more details available at www.everton.com. This week's listener e-mail includes: congratulations and comments for George concerning his new iMac; opinions about genealogy add-ons; and a question concerning newspapers.Drew discusses his research experiences into the "Unclaimed Persons" project started by RootsTelevision.com. Look for "Unclaimed Persons" on facebook.com for information and open cases.The Guys discuss the availability of digitized newspaper resources and how to access them.

This week's news includes: Genclass.com (http://genclass.com/) partners with Familylink.com (http://www.familylink.com/) to offer two free genealogy classes at WorldVitalRecords.com (http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/); APG names Michael Melendez of Fullerton, CA, as the first recipient of the Young Professional Scholarship; Millenia Corp. announces that new Legacy Family Tree version 7.0 is now available; construction delays at the new Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, MO, postpone preservationists' tour; Moorshead Magazines, Ltd., publishers of Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy, and Discovering Family History, has issued a call for old military uniform photos for a tentative book to cover the U.S. Civil War through the Mexican-American War and through World War I (no WWII) - submission details are available at http://familychronicle.com/militaryphotos.htm; Stonehenge has been found to have been a burial ground from 3,000 to 2,500 B.C.; a new genealogy centre has opened in Dinfermline, Scotland; Ancestry.co.uk has released a new database of 8.9 million "free settlers" to Australia; and the True Lover's Knot" discussed here has been published in Real Simple magazine and online here.Listener e-mail includes: an inquiry about accessing The Guys' Down Under: Florida videos at RootsTelevision.com; the different pronunciations of "Beaufort" in North Carolina and South Carolina; The History of Mecklenburg County, NC by J.B. Alexander, published in 1901, has been reprinted by Clearfield Company (at http://www.genealogical.com); whether to city every source you work with, and a response from Elizabeth Shown Mills' book, Evidence Explained; Ancestry.com continues its free ethnic research training webinars series; a question about searching the LDS Family History Library catalog; a question about citing websites and using the "www." in the typed address; the Algonquin Area Public Library is beginning a series of training lessons about Web 2.0 at http://community.ahml.info/bakersdozen/; and Mark Tucker, author of ThinkGenealogy.com blog (http://www.thinkgenealogy.com) is seeking feedback as to whether he should evolve his site into a community site, and invites you to visit his Mission Statement proposal and make comments.George reveals that he has just purchased an iMac and refused to migrate to Vista on his PC. The Guys talk about using different computer platforms and operating systems, and George will report back on his experience in future podcasts.

The news this week includes: a new series at RootsTelevision.com titled Unclaimed Persons which the producers hope will raise awareness of the problem of unclaimed bodies and encourage viewers to help; Ancestry.com announces a series of free Ethnic Webinars, beginning June 3rd, to help you with researching your ancestry (click here to register); vandals wreak havoc and destroying monuments in a Riverview, Florida, cemetery; and MyHeritage Research (http://www.myheritage.com/research) announces the upgrade of its unique search engine.George announces conference venues at which he and/or Drew will be appearing soon: Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree (27-29 June - http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/2008jam-index.htm with G&D); RootsMagic Cruise (28 September to 5 October - http://www.rootsmagiccruise.com/ with G; South Orange County California Genealogical Society (18 October - http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~casoccgs/ with G); and the Florida State Genealogical Society (14-15 November - http://www.flsgs.org/ with G&D).The poem mentioned mentioned in Episode #137 was identified as "Voices from the Past" by Adelaide Ann Proctor (1825-1864).Listener e-mail includes: a new online citation tool at Zotero.com; a discussion of the availability of Ancestry.com at Family History Centers and the Family History Library; information about the Army Heritage Education Center outside Carlisle, Pennsylvania; and a problem with duplicate individuals appearing in the personal MyAncestry family tree view.Drew talks about finding a new record type: an Alcoholic Beverage Control License.

News this week includes: FamilySearch teams with FamilyLink.com to bring online the Brenner Collection of German records (1650-1875) with more than 3.5 million names and between 900,000 and 1.5 million images; and Ancestry.com announces plans for massive additions in global content and new geographical locations, including a Chinese site with Chinese Jaipu and a Spanish-language site.George shares a special Ancestry.com web page that specifically contains the list of all the NARA microfilm collections that have been digitized and indexed. The site is at http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/nara.aspx and contains a search template for searching these specific databases. There is a complete list of the databases which you can access and search individually. George recommends bookmarking this site!The Guys talk about some collaborative research they helped a friend with. It concerned identifying the names of the two casualties of the explosion of the ship, Ophir, in the port of Gibraltar on 11 November 1918. In the process, an interesting story about the explosion is discovered.The Guys discuss in detail the "Brave New World of Genealogical Research" that has evolved in the last several years.

This week's news includes: Geni, Inc. (geni.com) announces the new functional availability for users to upload GEDCOM files; FamilyLink.com (familylink.com) announces its partnership with FamilySearch to add new functions to the Family History Library Catalog, making it searchable by Internet search engines and allowing users to annotate entries; Footnote.com (footnote.com) announces the addition of the 1860 U.S. Federal Census to its Civil War Collection; and the Social Security Administration has released its list of the most popular baby names for 2007. Listener e-mail topics include: a family listed twice on the 1880 U.S. federal census -- in two enumeration districts; observations about the embedded player at "The Genealogy Guys Podcast" site; Drew discusses his findings in the 1910 and 1920 censuses for a Black Seminole family in Escambia County, Florida; and George responds to an inquiry about web sites to which photos of WWII service personnel can be uploaded and accessed by family members. George cited Dead Fred (http://www.deadfred.com), Ancestors Lost and Found (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/ancestors/), and Honoring Our Ancestors (http://www.honoringourancestors.com/library_orphan.html).George shares news about three web sites of interest to listeners: Cyndi's List has a new page of Free Stuff at http://www.cyndislist.com/freestuff.htm that includes forms, free databases, software and more. The Scottish Screen Archive at http://ssa.nls.uk is Scotland's moving images collection with more than 100 years of Scottish history and culture on film and video. The Roscommon Historical Research site at http://www.roscommonhistory.ie has a great deal of genealogical material. Also check http://www.leitrim-roscommon.com. The Guys share a poem and encourage any responses by listeners as to its origins.The Guys discuss how they have used PowerPoint to create a presentation for a memorial service. The process can be used for heritage presentations, family reunions, anniversary celebrations, and many other genealogical projects.

This week's news includes: the Vatican has issued a letter instructing all dioceses not to give any information to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, due to concerns about the Mormons' practice of posthumous rebaptism; a new Midwest Genealogy Center (see http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/genlh/mgc.htm) will open in Independence, Missouri, on 21 June 2008 with the largest collection of genealogical materials in the U.S.; DNA links have been found from the ancient "iceman" found in British Columbia in 1999 to at least 17 living people; an American couple touring in Germany visited a gasthaus in Binningen and were introduced to a relative -- a man who looked exactly like the husband. The men shared the same great-great grandfather.Listen e-mail included: loss of HeritageQuest Online in the Satellite Beach, Florida, library; a thank you for our discussions of the Mozy (http://mozy.com/) computer backup facility; Catholic parish family books (Familienbuecher) in Germany; suggestions for locating information about Black Seminole people (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Seminoles and Seminole & Apalachicola Indian Records); a listener asks for help when his own DNA and that of his family members disagrees; teaching genealogy to and for kids; the occupation of "vanman" is defined; and the origins of the surname Turtle are discussed. [Drew referred to the book, A Dictionary of English Surnames: The Standard Guide to English Surnames by P.H. Reaney and R.M. Wilson, published by OxforndUniversity Press in 1995.]George discusses the practical use of DNA in conjunction with genealogy, archeology, and geography in the research of the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research (http://www.lost-colony.com/). The "Lost Colony" was the second settlement on Roanoke Island on the Outer Banks of what is now North Carolina. It began in 1587 and it was there that Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World, was born on 18 August 1587. When the relief ships finally returned from England in 1590, the settlement was deserted, and a single word -- "Croaton" -- was carved into a post of the fort. Croaton was the name of one of the local Indian tribes. One suggestion is that the settlers were assimilated into one or more of the three tribes. The DNA testing and analysis being done by the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research is seeking to validate or refute this hypothesis, and the project is infinitely interesting.

News this week includees: Geni.com (http://www.geni.com/) announces new features, including a family timeline, posted links, send gifts, and the family Forest; Progeny Software offers its Charting Companion software to produce great-looking charts in color and with photos -- click here for more information; and the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, is presenting a Military Symposium 2008 on September 26 & 27, 2008, with guest speaker Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CG, CGL, and more information is available from [email protected] Guys responded to listener e-mail: Find-a-Grave (http://www.findagrave.com/) does include graves in the UK and other countries; locating the physical address for a rural postal box in 1935; more about the downloadable PDF file at http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com about what to do with the results of your genealogy test; Catholic priest's census records; findings in old address books; another look at Chicago Public Radio's March 14th podcast about the kidnapping of Bobby Dunbar; an article titled "To Catch a Thief" at Smithsonian.com (click here to the exact location) tells how Civil war buffs got onto the trail of stolen documents; and Drew discusses uninterruptable power supply (UPS) units.

In the News, The Guys review two new publications: Hookers, Crooks, and Kooks by Jana Sloan Broglin, and Kisses from a Distance by Raff Ellis. A baby's tombstone from 1894 is discovered on a houseboat in Charleston, SC.George responds to a request about deed platting software: DeedMapper from Direct Line Software (http://www.directlinesoftware.com) sells for $99.00, while a free online deed platting tool is available for use at http://www.genealogytools.net. Drew follows up regarding the use of a final 'e' at the end of some surnames, such as Greene.Chicago Public Radio's series, This American Life, has an interesting episode from 14 March 2008 titled "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar" available as a podcast at http://thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1234. It is a terrific story!Drew talks about the term "countryman" and its origins. He then discusses ordnance maps and their use. George suggests copying online obituaries from newspapers and from funeral homes' Web sites and from their online guest books. The Guys end the show with a discussion of church directories and church bulletins.

This week's news includes the following: Ancestry.com launches the Drouin Collection of 29 million French-Canadian names from, ultimately to include 37M names by mid-2008; Ancestry.com also launched the Former Colonial Dependencies Slave Register Collection, 1812-1834; RootsMagic has extended the early Bird Registration for this year's genealogy cruise to April 30th (see http://www.RootsMagicCruise.com); Wholly Genes has announced its genealogy cruise line-up (see http://www.WhollyGenes.com/cruise.htm); the My Genealogy toolbar is free and helpful for those researching their UK ancestors, and is at http://www.usefultoolbars.co.uk; and the National History Show will be held May 2-4, 2008, in Olympia, London, UK (see http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.co.uk for information and tickets.)The Genealogy Guys appear in their second episode of Down Under: Florida at RootsTelevision.com. Click here to see the new feature about famed Ringling Brothers circus performers, The Flying Zacchinis. You'll love it!Listeners share lots of great information, including: "Catholic: Under the Hood" videocast about the Sicily-Rome Cemetery, resting place of WWII soldiers; print labels for your family heritage CDs and DVDs using Light Scribe software and disks (http://www.lightscribe.com/); search the Web site for the funeral home that recently handled arrangements for an individual -- they often have more detailed obituaries than the newspapers, guest books, and even photographs; a suggested reference for understanding land records and land platting is E. Wade Hone's book, Land and Property Research in the United States (Ancestry Publishing); The Guys offer tips for breaking through brick walls; and George responds to a request about his research on his great-uncle, Brisco Washington Holder.George reviews and recommends three books:Capturing Memories: Your family Story in Photographs by Maureen A. Taylor (Ancestry Publishing: 2007)Bibliographic Checklist of African American Newspapers by Barbara K. Henritze (Genealogical Publishing Co./Clearfield Company: 1995 and Reprinted 2008)Bad Baby Names by Michael Sherrod and Mathew Raybeck. (Ancestry Publishing: 2008)

Drew addresses proving relationships using mitochondrial DNA. He then discusses two genealogical books on the subject of DNA. They are: DNA & Genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick and Andrew Yeiser (published in 2005 by Rice Book Press) and Family History in the Genes by Chris Pomery (published in 2007 by The National Archives in Kew, Richmond, Surrey). Both are available through Amazon.com. This week's news stories include: Roots Television at http://www.rootstelevision.com has won four Telly Awards in its first year in business; the National Genealogical Society has announced the appointment of Pamela K. Boyer, CG, CGL, its Education and Publications Director; and WorldVitalRecords.com (http://www.worldvitalrecords.com) has added 300 new databases from the Godfrey Memorial Library and will add 300 more each week this month. Listener e-mail includes discussions concerning: "The Vision of Britain? system holds the full text of three 19th century gazetteers at http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp; LDS Family History Center personnel can provide expert advice to you before you reach the point of hiring a professional researcher; a listener asks for opinions about the National Genealogical Society's online course, "Introduction to Genealogy?; genealogy of U.S. presidential candidates is a topic of worldwide discussions; another recommendation is made for creating CDs/DVDs of family history information; the recessive gene responsible for red hair is declining and is expected to be obsolete by 2100; Arphax Publishing Company publishes excellent quality family maps by state and county, and can be found at http://www.arphax.com; and additional information about District of Columbia records is offered.

This week's news includes: NBC has purchased rights to create an American version of the popular BBC reality series, Who Do You Think You Are?; NARA recently announced the availability of nearly 9 million WWII U.S. Army enlistment records at its Web site, but be aware that there were many records that could not be scanned – and the collection is therefore incomplete; Sen. John McCain's new book, Hard Call, indicates his descent from Scottish heroic warrior Robert the Bruce, but the claim has been termed "baloney? in the British press by professional genealogists; Jacksonville Public Library in Florida has begun an "ASK a Librarian? online chat service; I.R.I,S., Inc., (at http://www.irislink.com) has two new portable scanners of note. Listener e-mail topics this week include: Genealogical Publishing Company's new CD by Michael Hait, titled The Family History Research Toolkit, has PDF format forms into which you can type information or use the forms for transcription purposes ($19.95 USD); a discussion of professional research services and researchers (Board for Certification of Genealogists at http://www.bcgcertification.org/ and the Association of Professional Genealogists at http://www.apgen.org/ and the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists at http://www.icapgen.org/) are three resources); missing census images at Ancestry.com were reported through the online Help facility and will be handled; a question about searching databases that are added to sites incrementally, and not wasting your time doing the same searches on the same data; an early pilot of the LDS' online databases is available at http://search.labs.familysearch.org; use of Google's My Map feature to create maps of cemeteries and other locations in a specific area; scanning photos using Google's Picasa feature; Washington, DC, records storage repositories for that jurisdiction; and issues concerning placing one's genealogical data online.

In this week's news: NARA (http://www.archives.gov) posts free passenger lists online, including Russian, Italian, and German lists to east coast ports; 1871 England and Wales census images are now complete on British Origins (http://www.britishorigins.com); The Generations Network, Inc. (http://www.tgn.com), parent of Ancestry.com, RootsWeb, Genealogy.com, and other entities, announced that they will move RootsWeb onto the Ancestry.com domain, using http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com, and that there should be no changes to the online experience of users – and that RootsWeb will continue to be free; and WorldVitalRecords.com (http://www.worldvitalrecords.com) now has over 1 billion names at its site. The Guys respond to many listener e-mail topics: the correct pronunciation of Haaretz, the largest newspaper in Israel which is beginning a new start-up genealogy social network, is 'Hah-AH-retz', which is Hebrew for "The Land.?; university databases and the possibility of accessing them remotely; missing census page images at Ancestry.com for Decatur County, Indiana; the availability of the 1846 Slater's Commercial Directory of Ireland at http://failteromhat.com/slater.htm. The Guys continue discussing listener e-mail about DNA and Drew continues his discussion of the topic to try to educate us all.

George delivers a lot of news this week: the New England Historic and Genealogical Society (http://www.newenglandancestors..org) has received a large gift of photographs from the family of Thaxter Spencer, including an unknown 1888 photo of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan; the Library of Congress's digital preservation program has a new e-mail newsletter and you can subscribe by clicking here; NARA is soliciting comments from the public by 9 April 2008 regarding a proposal to enter into a non-exclusive agreement with The Generations Network, Inc., owners of Ancestry.com, to digitize and expand access to record holdings in NARA's custody (see http://www.archives.gov/comment/tgn-preamble.html); Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery's registers are about to be placed on the Internet, and more information is available at http://www.cigo.ie; Genealogical Publishing Company (http://www.genealogical.com) has partnered with FamilyLink.com, Inc. (http://www.familylink.com) to make their databases available on WorldVitalRecords.com (http://www.worldvitalrecords.com); Haaretx, Inc. (http://www.haaretz.com/) announced with Famillion (http://www.famillion.com) the launch of a new genealogy and social network search engine aimed at connecting the Jewish people worldwide; MyGreatBigFamily.com (http://www.mygreatbigfamily.com) launches enhanced social networking websites for families; GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com) has added the first 20 Hispanic newspaper titles for 4 states to its online historic newspaper collection, covering the period from 1855 to 1956, and will add many more, ultimately covering the period 1808 to 1980; an ID thief is caught and imprisoned in New Zealand for fraud in the theft of thousands of dollars in student loans for deceased children whose birth certificates he had obtained. The Guys read and respond to listener e-mail on many topics: George misread the URL for the multimedia presentation software called Passage Express (which should be http://www.passageexpress.com); a listener and the Web Marketing Director of NewspaperArchive.com provided information about and a free trial of their site at http://www.newspaperarchive.com; information is shared about the HP MediaSmart Server for compact file backups and extensive hard drive installation; a free site to convert files into other formats is available at http://www.youconvertit.com); the True Lover's Knot will be featured in the May issue of Real Simple magazine (http://www.realsimple.com); Newberry Library in Chicago is working on a project to document and then digitize all state and county boundary changes in its Atlas of Historic County Boundaries Project (AHCBP) and has 23 states available online at http://www.newberry.org/ahcbp/; a listener shared the image of an 1880 census Enumerator's Daily Report to Census Office form that he purchases on eBay; and one listener shared information about her ancestry and, in particular, shared her related photos that she has uploaded to the Shutterfly photograph file sharing site at http://www.shutterfly.com. The Guys continued with listener e-mail on the subject of genealogical DNA testing and will continue next week again with another descriptive discussion.

This week's news includes: condolences to the family of Chuck Knuthson, a great genealogical speaker, researcher, and former board member of FGS, GSG, and other organizations; Halvor Moorshead, head of Moorshead Magazines [Family Chronicle, History Magazine, Internet Genealogy, and the new Discovering Family History] is retiring and has sold the company to staff members Ed Zapletal and Rick Cree.Listener e-mail includes: Greek genealogical research links are available at Cyndi's List (at http://www.cyndislist.com/greece.html) and at Kimberly Powell's column at About.com (at http://genealogy.about.com/od/greece); a request for help reading an occupation on a 1920 census schedule for Flint, Michigan, draws a unanimous opinion from The Guys [Quarry]; thanks for suggestions for recording an interview with a mother who transcribed contents of a now-lost Bible; an explanation of the source for information used by a census enumerator to complete a mortality schedule in the 1880 census; and a true life story of backing up one's data.Drew describes and discusses Mark Tucker's brilliant Genealogy Research Process map and textual description at http://www.ThinkGenealogy.com. It is derived from concepts of the Board for Certification of Genealogists and by Elizabeth Shown Mills, expert on the genealogical proof standard and author of Evidence Explained, the new and definitive book concerning citation of genealogical evidence.Drew discusses the use of dictionaries to locate the definitions of older, more obscure terms found in historical and genealogical documents. The example he cites is the term, "Fresno," a piece of equipment once used for scraping road surfaces.The Guys discuss databases for historical newspapers and more recent (ca. 1980 to present) newspapers. The companies discussed are LexisNexis (the Nexis portion); NewsBank's "America's Genealogy Bank" database; and ProQuest. Newspaper databases may be available through your local public library and/or your local college or university library. Drew discovered that sometimes the newspapers available in a database inside the library are greater in number than when you access the database remotely from outside the library. This can be due to differences in licensing contracts. George encourages listeners to check out all the databases available through their libraries.

This week's news includes: Congratulations to Matt Wright who becomes editorial director at FamilyLink.com; a recap of a USA Today report of 18 February about states unsealing adoption records and opening original birth records to adoptees; passenger lists of persons leaving the U.K. for the U.S., Canada, and Australia during the 1940s are available at Ancestors Onboard at http://www.ancestorsonboard.com; the National History Show will be held on 2-4 May 2008 in the Grand Hall, Olympia, London, and tickets can be booked at http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.co.uk.Listener e-mail includes more kudoes for The Guys' "Down Under" video at RootsTelevision.com; Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps at the New York Public Library at (accessible now only at the NYPL), as well as digital maps and photographs in their digital gallery at http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/; a number of video options for creating heritage DVDs and slideshows using Apple Macintoshes and PCs have been suggested in various price ranges:PowerPoint to Slideshow12 Screencasting Tools for Creating Video Tutorials (suggested by Drew) at http://mashable.com/2008/02/21/screencasting-video-tutorials/Adobe products at http://www.adobe.comApple products at http://www.apple.com The Guys spend the remainder of the show discussing the intricacies of U.S. copyright laws and fair use standards. Definitely worth a listen!

George reports on the genealogy news this week: Julia M. Case, beloved genealogist and author at RootsWeb has died; Moorshead Magazines has begun a new magazine called Discovering Family History for beginning genealogists and those who want a refresher, and a premier online issue is available for free at http://www.discoveringfamilyhistory.com; and other stories. The Guys share listener e-mail including: places for locating French records; safety of publishing family trees on the Internet; validating the contents of a lost family Bible; responses to the topic of how to avoid genealogy burnout; and they share feedback on their new Down Under: Tampa series at RootsTelevision.com.