EOGN: Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

A Weekly Summary of Events and
Topics of Interest to Online Genealogists

Vol. 7 No. 8 – February 25, 2002

This newsletter was sponsored by Ancestry.com,
a leader in providing print and electronic
research information to genealogists.

To learn about Ancestry.com’s
state-of-the-art online genealogy databases
and other fine products,
visit the company’s three Internet properties,
MyFamily.com, Ancestry.com, and RootsWeb.com

Copyright© 2002 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

If you do contact any of the companies or societies mentioned in this newsletter, please tell them that you read about their services in this newsletter.

IN THIS ISSUE:

- Minnesota Death Certificates Index Online
- National Archives of Canada Online Survey
- What Is PDF and Why Do I Care?
- Free Program to Create PDF Files
- MAY Surname DNA Project
- MyFamily.com, Inc. Records Largest Monthly Growth
- James W. Baker Honored
- Elon Gasper Moves to VizX Labs
- Home Pages Highlighted

- Minnesota Death Certificates Index Online

Death certificates can provide valuable genealogy information for researchers. Most death certificates will provide a place and date of birth for the deceased individual, information that may be elusive otherwise. Some death certificates will even provide the names of the parents. Frequently, the death certificate may be the only easily identified link back to a person’s birth and his or her ancestors.

The Minnesota Historical Society now has an online index of death certificates in the state. The database currently indexes the years from 1908 through 1955. The Minnesota state government became custodian of death records starting in 1908, and these are the records indexed by the Minnesota Historical Society. Earlier records were kept by the county government and are not included in the new online database.

I took a look at the Minnesota Death Certificates Index database and found it very easy to use. From the search page you have options for entering first/last name (exact, contains, starts with, or ends with), date of death (expressed as a range of years), county to search (or you can search all counties) and how you want to arrange the results displayed (by last name, first name, death year, and death county.)

After specifying a search, within a second or two a new page appears, listing those items that match your search criteria. Search results have a place for name, certificate ID, date of birth, place of birth, mother's maiden name, date of death, and county of death. However, not all the fields will be filled in. For instance, in all the searches I conducted the date of birth, place of birth, and mother’s maiden name were blank in this index.

Keep in mind that this is strictly an index. The information in this database does not include all the information contained on the original death certificates. Information about date and place of birth or parents’ names may be missing in this online index but usually can be found on the original certificates. If you find an ancestor listed in this database, you will always want to obtain a photocopy of the original death certificate. The Minnesota Historical Society’s Web pages make it easy to order the certificate(s) by mail. When viewing the index listing for an individual, you can click on "Add to Order." You may continue to search in the database and even add more items to the order form.

When you are finished with your searches, you click on "View Order." The order form will be automatically generated by the Society’s Web page and displayed on your screen. However, you must send the order form and payment information by old-fashioned "snail mail." You simply print the order form on your local printer, and write a check ($8.00 per certificate requested) or enter your credit card information on the order form. You then send the order to the Minnesota Historical Society. The Society will send photocopies of the certificates to you, normally within three weeks of your order date.

- National Archives of Canada Online Survey

The National Archives of Canada has embarked on a new project — Accessible Archives — which looks ahead to the services to be offered in the future. The objective is to serve Canadians better by making the holdings of the National Archives more accessible to them. To help achieve this goal, the National Archives is currently exploring what the services to the public should encompass by the year 2008. The National Archives of Canada has asked the public to help achieve this goal by taking a few minutes to respond to a questionnaire.

- What Is PDF and Why Do I Care?

One of the problems of publishing genealogy data (or any other information) online or on CD-ROM is that there are so many variations of file formats. The intended audience for your work might be running the same operating system and word processor that you do. If so, your task is easy: simply save your file in the manner you normally do. However, the wider the audience, the greater the likelihood that others may not be able to read the files you create in your favorite word processor, genealogy program, or other application. If you use Windows, how do you ensure that your work can be read on Macintosh computers? Or can your files be read on Linux or UNIX or the handheld computers that are becoming so popular these days?

Another common problem is preserving formatting. How do you distribute electronic files in a manner that will always look as you intended it to on your recipients’ computer screens or when printed on their printers? Many have published HTML files that looked great in Internet Explorer, only to find that the information looked different when displayed in Netscape or a different version of Internet Explorer or perhaps some other Web browser. Sometimes a different Web browser might not display parts of your information at all.

A third issue is the copying of data. With most files, it is very easy for other people to electronically extract information from within your work and insert it into their own. Sometimes this is a good thing, but at other times it may not be so desirable. Perhaps you want your own information to remain just that: clearly identified as your own. You might even want your copyright statement to be clearly identified on all information you publish and distribute. Luckily, you can easily publish your documents in such a way that information from within your documents cannot easily be copied electronically.

There is, however, one file format that is universal across almost all operating systems. Some years ago, the Adobe Corporation created the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF has now become the de facto standard for electronic documentation distribution. Once a file is created in PDF format, anyone can read your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended — with layout, fonts, color, links, and images intact. In short, it will look like a document published with a desktop publishing program. It will look the same on any operating system, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, UNIX, OS/2, and even handheld Palm computers. Best of all, the required software to view your PDF document is completely free. As a result, everyone can read your document. In fact, many of the genealogy CD-ROM disks reviewed in this newsletter were created in Adobe’s PDF format.

The choice of PDF format also gives the author control over the ability of recipients to manipulate the text and pictures in a document. By setting security options in Acrobat, the author can give his or her PDF documents a certain level of copy protection. One of the options available within Adobe Acrobat program that creates PDF files will prevent users from copying text or images, effectively disabling the normal "copy-and-paste" functions. Other options prevent users from printing the document or changing the features that the author has set. You can even set a password to prevent viewing by would-be users who do not have the password. To be sure, anyone who can view a document can always re-type the information by hand. However, PDF files make it very difficult to electronically extract bits and pieces of information from within a document.

While the PDF viewer software that recipients use is free, the software required to create PDF files may be expensive. For many years, there was but one choice: Adobe Acrobat. Adobe sells the PDF creation software for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and UNIX. The list price for the Adobe Acrobat file creation software is $249.00 (U.S. funds) although discount stores may sell it for $200 or a bit less.

In summation, if you are looking to publish information on the Web or on CD-ROM, you should consider publishing PDF files. The recipient will see the information you publish in its original format, with all fonts, color, images and links in place. It can be viewed on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and other operating systems. By selecting the proper options when you create the PDF file, the data within your file will not be extracted electronically.

- Free Program to Create PDF Files

For quite a few years, PDF files have been the standard method of distributing information in a manner that ensures preservation of formatting, fonts, text, graphics, and Web links. The viewer software for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and a number of other operating systems is free. However, until recently, the only method of creating PDF files was to purchase Adobe Acrobat for $200 or more. Several companies have now created lower-priced programs with the capability of creating PDF files that are fully compatible with Adobe’s Acrobat standard. This week I used the lowest-priced program of all: a free program called PDF995.

PDF995 is one part of a suite of programs written for use on Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, NT 4.0, and XP. I used PDF995 on a Windows 2000 system. PDF995 is the program that creates the PDF files. Other programs in the "suite" produce encrypted files and also offer extra enhancements and file utilities not available in the basic PDF995 program.

PDF995 can be downloaded directly from the producer’s Web site as a ZIP file. Once downloaded, it must be unzipped with WinZIP or any other compatible ZIP file extraction program. Once unzipped, you double-click on the single new file to install PDF995.

PDF995 becomes a logical printer within Windows. It appears on your list of printers within all Windows programs. To create a PDF file, you simple create your work in the normal manner, using a word processor or genealogy program or spreadsheet or whatever application you wish. You then "print" to PDF by selecting the PDF995 "printer" from the normal Windows printer selection menu within your application. Instead of printing on paper, PDF995 creates a new PDF file of whatever name you specify.

Since I was writing this newsletter with Microsoft Word, I created a PDF version of the newsletter by using PDF995. It worked flawlessly. The PDF version was able to display the text, fonts, and everything else as if I had printed it on paper. In short, it did exactly what I expected. I then used PDF995 with two different genealogy programs and again found that the PDF files it created worked perfectly, even displaying the lines around text boxes in pedigree charts. Everything in the file created with PDF995 displayed properly in the free PDF viewer program from Adobe. The PDF files contained all the formatting produced by the genealogy programs. I then experimented by having PDF995 create PDF files of Web pages, complete with graphics. Again, the program worked well.

There is one glaring omission in PDF995 however: the program cannot disable the ability to copy text from the file and then paste that text into another program. Anyone looking at your PDF file created with PDF995 can click on the "Text" icon and then copy and paste text information from your document into another. While this is a significant drawback for some users, it may be a trivial issue for others. In any case, one cannot complain too much about a free program. PDF995 is an excellent solution for preserving formatting and ensuring that your documents can be read on any operating system. It is not, however, an appropriate solution for those who wish to protect the integrity of their text.

PDF995 is a free program supported by advertising. It will display a sponsor page in your web browser each time you run the software. If you would prefer to not see the sponsors’ messages, you may upgrade to a non-sponsored version by obtaining a license key at any time for $9.95 (U.S. funds). However, even the advertising-supported version of PDF995 has all the functionality of the registered version. The only difference is the advertising.

There other two programs in the PDF "suite" of programs. PdfEdit995 is a utility that adds extra functionality, such as combining PDF files, allowing for rotation of the output 90 degrees, specifying non-standard page sizes, placing a stamp (such as "Confidential") on each page, and more. The third program, Signature995, uses Microsoft cryptographic technologies to give you 128-bit DES encryption, offering a high level of protection for all your Internet communications, including legal documents and financial transactions.

All three of the programs in the PDF995 suite are free and fully functional, although supported by advertising. To remove advertising, you can register each program for $9.95 apiece or all three for only $19.95. You may pay the registration keys online via a safe and secure Web order form.

PDF995 is an excellent addition to your Windows system. Once installed, you can use PDF995 to create files for your Web site or CD-ROM or simply to send to others via e-mail. You can probably find many uses for this free program.

- MAY Surname DNA Project

More and more family societies are using today’s technology to prove and disprove family relationships through past centuries. Three MAY researchers, J. Mark May, Enrique B. May, and Jim May, have undertaken a DNA study of those named May, Mays, Mayes or any other related surname variants.

These MAY researchers wish to analyze the Y chromosome of project participants so that they can discover whether males with surname MAY (and their female children) have a common ancestor. The Y chromosome passes from father to son unchanged apart from random mutations, much like a surname. With proper testing and analysis, families with surname MAY can potentially be linked by a common ancestor over timescales of hundreds of years. Of course, it is very possible that all the people named May do not share a single ancestor. Again, the DNA analysis should be able to determine those relationships

- MyFamily.com, Inc. Records Largest Monthly Growth

The following is an announcement from MyFamily.com (the sponsors of this newsletter:

MyFamily.com, Inc. Records Largest Monthly Growth in Company’s History

Subscription Services Account for Over 80% of Company Revenue

PROVO, Utah, Feb. 20 -- MyFamily.com, Inc., the leading network for connecting families and generations on the Web, today announced that the company's Ancestry.com site amassed over 52,000 paid subscriptions to its service in January, the largest monthly new subscription rate in the company's six year history. The Internet's most popular destination for pursuing family history research, Ancestry.com is the third largest subscription offering online, surpassed only by the online offerings of Consumer Reports and The Wall Street Journal's WSJ.com.

MyFamily.com, Inc.'s Internet sites providing fee-based services -- MyFamily.com and Ancestry.com -- have collectively surpassed 550,000 paid subscriptions to date. Ancestry.com has generated over 500,000 of those subscriptions, providing subscribers with exclusive access to some of the most coveted family history data available anywhere in the world such as birth, marriage and death records, even digitized images of the U.S. Federal Census. Ancestry.com currently has over 1.5 billion names available online making it the largest single source for genealogical information on the Internet.

Just five months after launching premium paid Web sites -- and with no money spent on marketing -- MyFamily.com, a leading password-protected community on the Internet for families, has generated over 35,000 paid subscriptions. MyFamily.com provides both free and premium paid private Web sites for families around the world. Users can post news, hold live voice and text chats, create online family photo albums, maintain a calendar of family events, share family history information and buy gifts for family members quickly and easily.

Subscription fees range from $24.95 per quarter for an Ancestry.com data subscription to $129.95 per year for the highest priced Ancestry subscription, which includes actual images of the U.S. Census and United Kingdom and Ireland records. MyFamily.com premium site subscriptions range from $19.95 annually to $99.95 annually for a super site with personal domain (i.e. jonesfamily.com).

The month of January also generated a record number of page views for the company, recording more than 2.4 million in a single day, and totaling over 520 million for the month.

"MyFamily.com has proven that if you have unique services and content that customers really want, they'll pay for it," said Tom Stockham, CEO and President of MyFamily.com, Inc. "We're encouraged by the tremendous success of our subscriptions and are confident in our ability to continue to expand our subscriber base and further extend our service going forward."

Online data subscriptions are the core business of the company, accounting for over 80% of its total revenue. The company also produces and sells books and CDs through its online store as well as traditional channels, and publishes two magazines targeted at the genealogy market.

About MyFamily.com, Inc.

MyFamily.com Inc. is the leading company connecting families with their histories, origins and one another. As a next generation media company, MyFamily.com is among the most successful online subscription businesses. Consistently ranking among the Media Metrix top 50, the company offers both free and premium paid subscription services to its network of Internet properties, which include: Ancestry.com, the number one source for tracing family history online; RootsWeb.com, the oldest and largest online genealogy community; and MyFamily.com, the foremost provider of private family web sites. The Company also publishes Ancestry Magazine, Genealogical Computing Magazine, over 50 book titles, and databases on CD-ROM.

- James W. Baker Honored

The following is a press release from the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:

James W. Baker Recipient Of Distinguished Mayflower Scholarship Prize

At the recently held 105th annual membership meeting of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, James W. Baker, former senior historian of the Plimoth Plantation was the recipient of that society’s annual Distinguished Mayflower Scholarship Prize. The prize consists of a certificate and a $500 check. Mr. Baker was accompanied by his wife Peggy, the director and librarian of The Pilgrim Society/Pilgrim Hall Museum.

Mr. Baker was recognized for the massive contribution he has made in interpreting the Pilgrims and their legacy. He was particularly cited for the impetus he has given to the development of the historical roles played by the Plimoth Plantation museum teachers in their visits to classrooms. "It is clear to us that by raising the historical information at Plimoth Plantation to a very high level of scholarship, and by reaching an audience of national and even international breadth, you have made the Plantation itself, in a special sense, your monument" reads the citation.

For the past five years, The Pennsylvania Society fully funded visits of the Plimoth Plantation teachers to approximately 15,600 elementary school children throughout Pennsylvania.

Previous recipients of the prize have been Mayflower Society Historian General Caroline L. Kardell, "The Great Migration" project director Robert Charles Anderson, and former Plimoth Plantation curator Jeremy D. Bangs, the current director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, Leiden, Holland. Coincidentally, all recipients are Fellows of The Pilgrim Society.

Mr. Baker is currently the head of the circulation department of the Plymouth Public Library.

- Elon Gasper Moves to VizX Labs

Many people in the genealogy software business will recognize the name Elon Gasper. Mr. Gasper was a Vice President of Sierra Home, producers of Generations Grande Suite. He was the driving force behind Generations Grande Suite and was present at most all the major genealogy conventions in the United States for several years. In the August 27, 2001 edition of this newsletter, I reported that Sierra Home was dropping all future development of Generations Grande Suite. With this turn of events, Elon Gasper apparently decided to move on to other opportunities.

In the January 30, 1999 edition of this newsletter, I described Elon’s presentation of Generations Grande Suite at the GENTECH99 Conference held in Salt Lake City. In that article, I wrote:

However, even in one hour, he [Elon] was unable to show all the features of the program. It was a pleasure listening to Elon. If the software business ever folds up on him, he obviously has a possible second career as an auctioneer. He spoke rapidly but never stumbled, and he covered a broad territory in his allotted time.

Elon’s many friends will be pleased to hear that he did not follow my career advice. This week VizX Labs announced that Elon Gasper has joined their executive team to direct consumer products research and marketing, including the second-quarter launch of an integrated suite of scientific software for researchers who desire ease-of-use and power in the laboratory while performing microarray experiments. Mr. Gasper joins VizX as senior vice president and will also contribute business development expertise as the company identifies corporate partners for strategic relationships.

- Home Pages Highlighted

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is being written and sent via e-mail at no charge. I expect to write one new issue on a more or less weekly basis. However, life sometimes interferes, and the need to earn a living may create an occasional delay.

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Many of the articles published in these newsletters contain quotes or references from others, especially from other Web sites, software users manuals, press releases and other public announcements. Any words in this newsletter attributed to another person or organization remain the copyrighted materials of the original author(s).

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The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2002 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author.

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