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This newsletter is available in both ASCII text and HTML versions. To change your preference, go to the address shown at the very end of this newsletter. EOGN: Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Standard Edition A Weekly Summary of Events and Topics of Interest to Online Genealogists Vol. 8 No. 33 – August 18, 2003 This newsletter relies solely upon "word of mouse" advertising. If you enjoy reading these articles, please tell others to go to http://www.eogn.com.Some of the articles in this Plus Edition newsletter are restricted to your personal use. Search previous issues of Standard Edition newsletters at: http://www.eogn.com.Plus Edition subscribers may gain access to a reserved section of the Discussion Board. Details are available at http://www.eogn.com/plus/messageboard.Listen to Dick Eastman’s broadcast on FamilyHistoryRadio.com.Copyright© 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved. - World Place Advisor Items marked with a Plus Sign (+) appear only in the Plus Edition newsletter. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded... A few weeks ago Progeny Software announced the release of a new program, called World Place Advisor. This week I had a chance to use this Windows program and can report that my genealogy database has been improved as a result. World Place Advisor contains a database of more than 3.3 million place names from around the world, including US churches and cemeteries. It will quickly check your genealogy file for place name accuracy and completeness. You can check the spelling of all your place names. The program will offer corrections that you can cut and paste directly into your genealogy database. If a place name in your database is not found, World Place Advisor will offer suggestions as to a correct name. It also includes latitude and longitude of all locations so that you can find your ancestors on a map. Best of all, World Place Advisor will read your genealogy file directly from the internal databases of most of the leading genealogy programs of today, including the following:
If you use a genealogy program that is not listed above, World Place Advisor will also read GEDCOM 5.5 files (including data with Western European diacritics). In short, World Place Advisor should be usable with any modern genealogy program. Installing World Place Advisor was simple: insert the CD-ROM disk, double-click on SETUP.EXE, and answer one question that appears on the screen. A few seconds after I did so, the program was fully installed. That one question was whether or not I wanted to copy the 180+ megabyte place names database to my hard drive. Copying to the hard drive results in faster and more convenient operation; leaving the database on the CD obviously saves disk space. I launched World Place Advisor for the first time and soon was staring at an almost blank screen: two "panes" with no information in them. There was no pop-up "wizard" or other prompt suggesting how to get started with the new program. However, I took a couple of minutes to read the built-in help files and was soon in business, improving my genealogy database. I use one of the programs on the supported list for most of my genealogy work, so I was able to work directly with that program’s data. In World Place Advisor, I clicked on FILE and then OPEN and then used the normal Windows tools to locate my primary genealogy database. World Place Advisor spent a couple of minutes reading that database and decoding all the place names. World Place Advisor then compared each place name with its built-in Gazetteer, using a process known as "Geo-Coding." Once the data had been read, a window displayed a list of all unknown and questionable places. I was able to go down this list and click on any entry with the mouse. The larger window then displayed details for that entry along with a list of suggested corrections. World Place Advisor looks for eight different problems:
As I went through the list, I was impressed with its accuracy. I have a lot of French-Canadian ancestry but am not expert in the language of those ancestors. This program immediately found a number of French place names that I had spelled erroneously. In most cases, the program was able to quickly identify the correct place location. In a few instances, my spelling apparently was so bad that the program was only able to offer two or three possible options as to the correct place. In each case, I was able to quickly find the correct place. Making corrections is easy. With World Place Advisor open in one window, you need to open your genealogy program in a second window on your desktop. Then, open your data file so that you can switch back and forth between World Place Advisor and your genealogy program's data file as you enter your corrections. You can right-click on a highlighted place name in World Place Advisor, select "Suggest Replacement," and then right-click on the correct town in the Place column. Then choose Copy. Switch to your genealogy program, highlight the incorrect place entry and then paste the correction. The whole process is easier than it sounds. NOTE: If you are not familiar with Windows' keyboard shortcuts, you should learn that simultaneously pressing the ALT and TAB keys will switch back and forth between two active windows, very handy when you are copying from one and pasting to the other. With Personal Ancestral File and some other genealogy programs, you can make Global Changes to your data file. This can be a big timesaver when you have many entries from the same geographic location, but you have to be careful. In any case, this functionality is built into the genealogy program, not in World Place Advisor. World Place Advisor also provides several reports. One that I like is the list of all events without a place listed. That report is now a part of my ever-expanding "to-do list" of tasks to be completed in the future. I have a few records that did confuse World Place Advisor. For instance, one person in a remote branch of the family tree reportedly "went West" from New England in the mid-1800s and was never heard of again. I recorded his place of death as "probably in the West." That is meaningful to me, but it did confuse World Place Advisor. I elected to leave that record alone; I am still listing it as "probably in the West." As its name indicates, World Place Advisor is strictly an "advisor." It does not force you to change your records. In fact, it never writes to your database. World Place Advisor makes suggestions and then waits for you to take action. I have to tell you that this program found a major new discovery for me. One ancestor of mine was a French-speaking lady who arrived in Quebec City in the 1660s. I had previously found several records in highly-respected genealogy books showing her place of christening, complete with date and parish name. (French-Canadian records rarely list place of birth but almost always list a place of christening. The christenings were always conducted within a few days of birth, so christening records are typically used in place of birth records.) Apparently, I had assumed that this parish was the name of a village in France, like that of 99.9% of the other immigrants to Quebec City at that time. World Place Advisor informed me that the parish is not in France at all; it is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, not far from the French border. I went on the Web to verify this information and found lots of references to the parish in Switzerland, including references to this woman as being from that place. I had already read transcriptions of the original records written in French, but, due to my own error, I had recorded it in the wrong country. This is not a case of shifting borders; apparently this particular parish has always been in Switzerland. Thanks to World Place Advisor, I now have Swiss ancestry! To be sure, there are competitive programs that will compare your genealogy database to gazetteers of place names. The two major unique differences of World Place Advisor are:
I am pleased with World Place Advisor. I have to tell you that I originally elected to save disk space and run directly from the CD-ROM disk. I had assumed that I would simply install the program, use it once, write this review and then never use World Place Advisor again. However, after using this program, I changed my mind. World Place Advisor is a "keeper." I later re-installed the program, copying the full database to my hard drive. I now expect to use this program time and time again. World Place Advisor requires:
World Place Advisor sells for $34.95 (U.S. funds) plus shipping. For more information about World Place Advisor, or to safely order it from Progeny Software's secure online shopping cart system, go to http://www.progenysoftware.com/placeadvisor.html.What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard- (+) A Free Photo Retouching Program The following is a "preview" of a Plus Edition-only article: There are quite a few graphics programs available for Windows and for Macintosh. They have a multitude of uses; including restoring faded or damaged family heirloom photographs. By far the best known graphics program is Adobe PhotoShop, a high-end powerhouse with a price tag to match. PhotoShop sells for about $600 or so. Adobe also sells a "junior version," called PhotoShop Elements, for a much more reasonable "street price" of about $90.00. PhotoShop Elements leaves out a number of features that are of interest to professional graphics artists but still retains all the core capabilities. PhotoShop Elements is very popular among home computer users and hobbyists. Adobe also has numerous competitors who sell similar graphics programs with varying capabilities for prices ranging from $35 to more than $500. This week I have been using still another high-powered graphics editing program for both Windows and Macintosh. The one I have been using includes:
I have to admit that I am not an expert in graphics software. In fact, I have no idea what "Full alpha channel support" means. Some of the other terminology in the above list also confuses me. But I can tell you that I am impressed with this program. In short, it is a very powerful Windows and Macintosh program that even this graphics-challenged person has used successfully to touch up photographs. I am just learning to use its many capabilities. I am very impressed with what I have used so far. I am also very impressed with the price tag of this program: zero. That's right; it is free of charge for all users, even for commercial use. The preceding is a "preview" of a Plus Edition-only article. The full article is available only to Plus Edition subscribers. - Antiques Ghostshow Experience Two weeks ago I briefly mentioned the Antiques Ghostshow, a television program shown in England and in Canada. You can read that article at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0331.htm#TheAntiqueGhostShow. I was presently surprised when Anthony Adolph sent me an e-mail. It seems that Anthony is the television show's genealogist. He kindly offered to supply more information about the show and even volunteered to answer questions concerning the show, how it was made and researched, as well as his own 'take' on the psychic's findings. As to the psychic, Anthony said, "For the record, I'm sure he's genuine!" The following was written by Anthony Adolph: A new slant on family history TV programs has just come to Canada's screens in the form of Antiques Ghostshow, an eight part series showing now on the satellite channel, Bravo! The show is nearing the end of its run in England, where it is shown on Living TV and was made here in England too, at Gilston Hall, a Victorian mansion in the Hertfordshire countryside not far from Posh and Becks' mansion, and on location in a host of antiques fairs, museums and archives around the country. It features myself, a genealogist; Chris Gower, a TV antiques expert; and Derek Acorah, a psychic medium. The idea of the show sounds bizarre - and it is! Besides being both clairvoyant and clairaudient, which means he can see and hear things in the "spirit world" Derek claims to be able to pick up on the residual energies left behind in objects by past owners. Presented with a succession of family heirlooms, Derek gave a series of readings in which he described these ancestral characters, talking about their mannerisms and appearances; their characters and foibles, their names, and sometimes dates. Chris would then go away and research the provenance of the artifacts and I would investigate the families to see to what extent Derek had got things right. Some people are very receptive to the idea that psychic mediums can experience the spirit world as easily as all humans can sense this one through our eyes and ears. They will not be surprised to watch Derek giving his readings and to hear Chris and myself saying 'yes, he got it right'. Others don't believe a word of it and will think either that Derek is cheating or that Chris and I are in on the plot. Working closely with Derek during the whole process of making the show convinced me absolutely that there was no skulduggery on his part: the man really can produce accurate information simply by touching an object. And neither were Chris nor I willing to or indeed needful of compromising our professional integrity for a TV program. I worked for a decade as a professional genealogist and latterly research director of one of Britain's largest firms of genealogists and now work as a freelance genealogist (at www.anthonyadolph.co.uk), have been closely involved with other family history related media projects, including Channel 4's Extraordinary Ancestors and Radio 4's Meet the Descendants, and have just finished The Collins Guide To Tracing Your Family Tree, for publishers HarperCollins. I went into this project out of absolute fascination to see what Derek would be able to do, and left deeply impressed. And a little shaken: I didn't want to believe in ghosts, but now I find my non-belief in the non-physical world rather badly dented. Derek's findings really were a genealogists' dream. I don't think the Mormons will need to worry about becoming redundant just yet as, although he did come up with names, places and dates, he seldom got all three in such a way as to enable me to go straight to the right records to identify the ancestor. By using record-based research, I could confirm a lot of what he said, but I did not get there any quicker because of his help. But when it came to talking about what people were like - their natures, likes and dislikes and so on, he was in a class of his own and described all the things you can very seldom get from original records. In some cases, incidentally, we could verify this more nebulous sort of information when the ancestor's descendant remembered them or when old photographs confirmed some element of their appearance. The whole process also brought us to the research from a slightly different angle than usual. One of my favourites is the story of George Reed, a Hertfordshire policeman, whose walking stick was brought to the show by his great granddaughter Alison McGahan. Derek got the name George very quickly, and said the man loved classic cars, which was extraordinary because George was the first policeman in the county ever to have a police car which, if it still existed, would certainly be considered a classic car. But because of the nature of the show, we were also interested in his stick, which George used to take with him when he patrolled the back streets of Hitchin. Filming another episode of the show took us to the museum of the Welsh Borderers in Wales and there, on the wall, were some army guns and swords, and also some of the weapons of their adversaries, the Zulus, including sticks called knobkerries. And we realised that that was exactly what George's stick was. It turned out that, like many policemen, he had started his career serving in the army, in a different regiment but one which had taken him none the less to Africa at a time when knobkerries were widely made (so a knobkerrie exert told us) as souvenirs for soldiers. The stick had therefore come back with George as a memento of his time serving in Africa. If it was not for Antiques Ghostshow, this fascinating aspect of the Reeds' family history would probably never have come to light. And there has been much more- portraits identified, soldiers rediscovered, music hall songs revived, and forgotten stories retold. I hope Canada will enjoy watching Antiques Ghostshow as much as I enjoyed making it. For the next couple of weeks Dick Eastman has very kindly asked me to be available to answer any questions you may have. You can ask me more about making the show, and I can also answer questions about researching family trees in Britain, which is what I do everyday in my work as a professional genealogist. So do get in touch and let me know what you think at the newsletter's Discussion Board. Thank you, Anthony. I have created a new section of the Discussion Board called "Antiques Ghostshow" and invite everyone to post questions and comments there. The Antiques Ghostshow Discussion Board is available at: http://rootsforum.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?s=c021d06ca4332a0de450af5d3a01e521;act=SF;f=20. What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://rootsforum.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?s=c021d06ca4332a0de450af5d3a01e521;act=SF;f=20 I don't know if this is the beginning of a trend or not, but the U.S. National Genealogical Society has opened a "Genealogical Society Outlet Store" on eBay. The society has announced that this will be "the spot for clearance items, overstocks, and our scratch and dent items." Like many eBay auctions, payment is made with a credit card using the services of PayPal. When I looked at the online site, about a dozen used books were being offered for sale. You can see the latest listings at: http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=70898411 eBay is a great resource that millions of people use every day. I am not surprised to see more and more genealogy organizations use this online resource; the publicity obtained on eBay is far greater than what can be obtained elsewhere. I suspect we will see more genealogy societies using eBay in the future. What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboardThe Federation of Genealogical Societies and the Florida State Genealogical Society, Inc. will be hosting the annual FGS conference in a few days. The conference will be held at the Renaissance Orlando Resort at Seaworld in Orlando, Florida, 3-6 September 2003. This is a major event, one of the larger genealogy conferences in the United States. I plan to be at this conference. If you can spend a few days in Orlando early next month, I'd suggest that you might want to be there as well. You can read about all the seminars to be held, the luncheons, the exhibitors' hall (my favorite place) as well as the Treasure Hunt, at http://www.fgs.org/2003conf/FGS-2003.htmYou can also read my earlier article about the 2003 conference at: http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0324.htm. If you would like an idea of what the FGS conferences are like, read my report on the 2002 FGS conference at http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0232.htm.What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard- (+) Your Name As Your E-Mail Address The following is a "preview" of a Plus Edition-only article: A number of newsletter readers have noticed that my e-mail address is the same as my name, only with ".net" on the end: richard@eastman.net. Some have asked, "Can I get an e-mail address that is the same as MY name?"Having an e-mail address based upon your name seems to have a natural connection with genealogy. If you are proud of your name, what better way to show that than to use it as your e-mail address? Besides, it is an easy address for your friends and relatives to remember. It is far more personal than one of the number-encumbered addresses, such as bob562357@aol.com. Family associations also can use surname-based domain names. Using the overworked surname of Smith as an example, not only is Smith.net available, but a Smith Family Association might want to encourage members to sign up for SmithMail.com, SmithNet.net, SmithNet.org or even TheSmiths.org. Another reason for obtaining a personal e-mail address is that it is "portable." That is, you can switch employers or Internet providers and still keep your e-mail address. For instance, if you presently have an e-mail address ending in "@aol.com," you are either a slave to AOL's service or else you have to go through a lot of turmoil notifying your friends and changing your mailing list subscriptions simply because you switched to a better service. The same is true if you receive mail at work, using an address provided by your employer. Using a "portable e-mail address," such as your own name, isolates you from all those problems. Should you switch employers or Internet providers, all the mail continues to go to your name-based address and you can still access it from any place or any Internet provider. In my case, obtaining my own name as an e-mail address was rather easy to do. You may or may not be able to do the same, depending upon whether or not the domain name for your last name is available.
- Identifying Remains in Amherst, NH Do you have ancestors in Amherst, New Hampshire? If so, please check your genealogy databases for any males who died in the 1700s. You may be able to help officials identify remains that were recently uncovered. Renovation work at the Amherst Town Hall came to a halt this week when workers uncovered part of a human skull. It was discovered under the granite foundation of the two-story brick building, which was erected in 1825 alongside what Amherst says may be the oldest public burial ground in the state. Work stopped while the coroner’s office was called, and then an archaeologist was also called in, as is required under state law. Kathleen Wheeler, director of Independent Archaeological Consulting of Portsmouth, said the skull is part of the well-preserved skeleton of an adult male, probably in his 20s, buried in a coffin that long ago rotted away. More bones were found, including most of the upper torso. Further digging will be conducted once the soil stabilizes. The nearest marked graves in the cemetery that abuts Town Hall date from the 1790s to early 1800s. Officials assume the skeleton is older than this, so that it had lost any marker and been forgotten about by the time Town Hall was built atop it. Officials will attempt to figure out the skeleton’s identity. "Perhaps we’ll find somebody listed in a genealogy who died about the right time," Wheeler said. However, even without identification, the remains will be returned to Amherst to be re-interred. "We plan to bury them out back in a dignified manner," Weber said. You can read more about this in the Nashua Telegraph's pages at http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=377&ArticleID=86801What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboardOne message posted on the GENCMP-L mail list on rootsweb.com this week caught my eye: "My understanding is that Dick Eastman passed away and the software is no longer available." Gee, I hope that person confused me with someone else. As Mark Twain once wrote, "The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated." What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboardThe "Home Pages Highlighted" section consists of new genealogy-related home pages that you, the readers of this newsletter, nominate for publication in this newsletter. While anyone may nominate any genealogy-related home page, the process seems to work best when the webmaster for a home page nominates his or her own work. You are invited to enter your nomination online at http://www.eogn.com.The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web home pages that have recently been listed by newsletter readers at http://www.eogn.com:UKAncestor.com has recently undergone many improvements. These include the addition of new Community Forums, incorporating a Photo Album to allow users to display their ancestral photos; improved search facility; and improved Obituary Exchange, where extracts taken from local newspapers in the UK and Ireland are displayed. UKAncestor.com is a free, family and local history directory, specific to the UK and Ireland. Kear Family Page where all Kear researchers are invited to add information. http://johnkear.fortunecity.netRaleigh County, West Virginia, 1880 census transcript:: Atha, Creed, Dickens, Turner, Sparks, Wiseman, and Williams families: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nylasgenealogyVan Wert County, Ohio Genealogical Society home page: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohvwogs/Original documents online under license for the UK's National Archives. Includes Estate Duty Office Indexes to Death Duty Registers 1796 to 1903 - an invaluable guide to UK wills and Administrations, Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea 1854 to 1890, Index to Divorce and Matrimonial Causes 1858 to 1903, Copies of original registers, indexes etc., can be viewed online for around 32 cents per page: http://www.nationalarchivist.comHelp finding the missing Baltimore passenger lists from 1839. Includes a searchable database for the first 6 months of 1839: http://www.genesearch.com/baltimore/1839.htmlTo submit your genealogy page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information at: http://www.eogn.com, click on "add your genealogy Web page to this list." Due to the volume of new Web pages submitted, I am not able to list all of them in the newsletter.The PR Budget for this newsletter is $0.00. I rely upon "word of mouse" advertising in which you recommend this newsletter to your friends. This newsletter is a private project of mine, and I have a zero budget for a publicity campaign to get more readers. In each issue, I try to offer you useful, interesting and sometimes amusing information to help you with your genealogy efforts. Can you take a minute to help me out in return? If you think this newsletter is a worthwhile read, please tell your friends. Better yet, suggest they can read the Standard Edition or subscribe to the Plus Edition at http://www.eogn.com.Thanks. Are you interested in the articles in this newsletter? Would you like to learn more or ask questions or make comments about these articles? Join this newsletter’s online Discussion Board at http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard.You can also search past newsletters at: http://www.eogn.com.If you would like to submit news, information or press releases for possible inclusion in future newsletters, send them to Richard@eastman.net. The author does reserve the right to accept or reject any articles submitted.COPYRIGHTS and Other Legal Things: The contents of this newsletter are copyright by Richard W. Eastman with the following exception: Many of the articles published in these newsletters contain quotes or references from others, especially from other Web sites, software user’s 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). This document is provided for informational purposes only. The information contained in this document represents the views of Richard W. Eastman with one exception: words written by other authors and republished herein are the views solely of those authors. All information provided in this document is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. The reader assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and the use of this document. You are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute articles from this newsletter to other parties provided:
Also, please include the following statement with any articles you re-distribute: The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at Anyone complying with the above does not need to ask permission in advance. Permission to use the words in this document for commercial purposes usually is granted. However, commercial use requires advance authorization. Thank you for your cooperation. ABOUT SPAM FILTERS: Be aware that the biggest problem faced when sending e-mail newsletters is spam filters in e-mail servers. Although the problem plagues many, many newsletters and other types of perfectly legitimate email, this newsletter seems to be particularly susceptible. It is quite long, and contains numerous examples of the kinds of things that spam blacklists, in their infinite wisdom, have deemed to be "spam like." Therefore, numerous email servers will delete this newsletter under the assumption that it is spam. If you all of a sudden stop receiving your copy of the newsletter (and this happens more than you might think), don't just assume I skipped an issue or there's something wrong with the newsletter's distribution. I rarely skip an issue without noting that in advance. If you stop receiving the newsletter, chances are that it's not a problem with your subscription; it's a problem with your mail server or your spam filter. That is the number one cause of newsletter subscription problems. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dick Eastman is a frequent presenter at major genealogy conferences. He has published articles in Genealogical Computing and Family Chronicle magazines and for a number of Web sites. He was an advisor to PBS' Ancestry series and appeared as a guest in one of the episodes. He serves on the Advisory Board of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and is a past Director of GENTECH and of the New England Computer Genealogists. Dick is the author of YOUR ROOTS: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer published by Ziff-Davis Press. He can be reached at: If you have questions or comments about the article in this newsletter, go to this newsletter's Discussion Board at http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard. Post your message there. You will receive then assistance from Dick Eastman or from a number of other people.SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: To obtain a subscription to Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter – Plus Edition, go to To receive a free e-mail notification whenever a new Standard Edition of the newsletter becomes available, go to http://www.eogn.com/newsletter/subscribe.This newsletter is available in both ASCII text and HTML versions. To change your subscription to the ASCII version, send an e-mail to ascii@roots.d2g.com. To change your subscription to the HTML version, send an e-mail to html@roots.d2g.com.If you have any questions about your subscription, send a message to support@eogn.com. | |||||||||||||||||||||
