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Copyright© 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. All rights reserved.

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Friends come and go, but relatives tend to accumulate.

As this is the last newsletter of 2003, I thought I would spend a bit of time looking back at the highlights and lowlights of the past twelve months. To be sure, it was a busy year.

Genealogy research has been revolutionized in the past decade, and the changes have continued in the past twelve months. In 1993 the World Wide Web was in its infancy, and there was minimal genealogy information online. To be sure, there were also very few genealogists online at the time. My, how our world has changed since then!

According to several sources, genealogy is now the third or fourth most popular topic among the millions of Web pages available. There are so many online genealogy databases that I could not possibly list them all in a single newsletter. Many new ones appeared in 2003. Millions of genealogists are now online every day, searching for ancestors.

The year 2003 saw a continuation of the decade of genealogy revolution, both online and off, including the following:

Indeed, 2003 has been a year of mixed news. You must admit, however, that it has been an interesting year!

In next week's newsletter, I will peer into a somewhat murky crystal ball and try to make some predictions about genealogy news, services, software, and searches in 2004.

What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard

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The NGS GENTECH conference is less than a month away. If you are in the St. Louis area 22-24 January 2004, you won't want to miss this opportunity to learn about the very latest technologies that can assist your family research. Lecture topics include the Internet, search engines, online databases, mapping, digital photography and video, desktop publishing, and much more.

GENTECH has always been one of my favorite genealogy conferences. The agenda focuses on the use of technology within genealogy, much the same as this newsletter's primary themes. The vendors' hall always has displays of the latest genealogy technology. The presentations include lectures aimed at technology newcomers as well as advanced topics for the die-hard techies and everything in between.

The St. Louis Genealogical Society is hosting the NGS GENTECH Conference next month. The conference will be at the Millennium Hotel, alongside the Mississippi River and within a block or two of some of the city's most interesting attractions. All of the Conference events - the lectures, Exhibit Hall, product demonstrations, luncheons, and banquet - are within easy walking distance of each other, and they are all on the same level within the hotel! Once you're on the Conference Level, no stairs or escalators are involved in moving around the conference. The Millennium Hotel is convenient to St. Louis International Airport and has ample parking for those who drive to the conference.

The conference begins on Thursday, January 22, with a program focused on librarians serving genealogists. The main GENTECH program will take place on Friday and Saturday, January 23 and 24.

I will be at this year's conference and hope to meet you there. In fact, quoting from a recent GENTECH announcement:

An abbreviated list of the other presentations includes:

• Internet: Ahh… the Internet.
• Gadgets: Including Optical Character Recognition (OCR), voice recognition, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and hand-held devices, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and digital cameras and scanners.
• Working Environment: How to organize your files, personalize your computer, and protect yourself from viruses. Are you a Mac user? You are covered here, too!
• Electronic Methodology: In these lectures you can explore traditional vs. electronic research, how to find your ancestors when they're (perhaps) not in the index, and how to build a database-driven Web application. We'll have a special session for those of you searching for your Irish ancestors electronically.
• Imaging: explore identifying photos, finding heirlooms, capturing video and putting it on a DVD, creating a CD-ROM of family photos, and some creative sources and uses of graphic images for genealogists.
• Electronic Publishing: One of the new frontiers in genealogical technology, learn how to use Adobe PDF files, how to find people in indexes, how to self-publish on Mac or using MS-Word on any computer, and how to cite those sources when you do publish.
• Applications: These lectures will provide in-depth examinations of popular application software for genealogists, including: desktop publishing, databases, presentation graphics, and spreadsheets.
• Electronic Sources: Attend these lectures to discover new sources for Irish records, to learn best practices in using the Internet, how to find your ancestors at the Ellis Island Web site, how you can help protect electronic record sources, and how to use Federal records on-line.
• Special Topics: These topics include DNA testing and genetic ancestry, mapping software, freeware and shareware, and some of the less-used electronic sources for genealogists.

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An electrical short circuit sparked a small fire in a storage area at the National Archives building on December 20. Luckily, the flames were quickly contained in a small area and did not come close to any stored documents. About 100 boxes housing land records from the 1800s and pension files for War of 1812 veterans received water damage. However, the storage boxes are designed to soak up water, and the documents inside the boxes were not damaged.

The fire, which broke out in an upper-level storage area, was immediately extinguished by building sprinklers. The incident occurred in a part of the building not open to the public and far from displays of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

The building was open to the public on time the following day.

What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard

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Most of this document is written in dry, bureaucratic English. However, genealogists might want to watch for the topics of "Revision of NARA Research Room Procedures" and "Restrictions on the Use of Records" to appear on the schedule. "Records Management; Electronic Text Documents" may also generate some interest.

What Do You Think? Comments and discussion are available on this newsletter's Discussion Board at: http://www.eogn.com/discussionboard

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We all have read history books about the brave and noble heroes who helped shape today's world. Hearty explorers, brave immigrants, exemplary church-goers and the like did indeed create today's modern world. Yet these same history books rarely describe the everyday world of those heroes and heroines. Sometimes their lives were not all fame and glory. In fact, their lives were often repulsive by today's standards. I thought I would focus for a bit on everyday life in the 1600s in Europe, in England, and in the newly-created colonies in North America.

The preceding is a "preview" of a Plus Edition-only article. The full article is available only to Plus Edition subscribers. If you subscribe now, you will receive a copy of this article. Click on Plus Edition for more information.

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Everybody wants something for nothing. However, most of us learn early in life that you usually get what you pay for. Strangely, in the world of genealogy software, those childhood lessons often do not apply. In fact, you can get much more than what you pay for.

I get to use a lot of genealogy software. In fact, I think I have used all the more popular Windows, Windows CE handheld, Macintosh, Palm, and Linux genealogy programs available in the past fifteen years. They vary widely in price and in capabilities. What fascinates me is the price variations are not in direct proportion to the capabilities. Some of the cheaper programs perform very well, while some of the more expensive ones sometimes do not justify the price differences. In fact, I have used a couple of $100 programs that seem to have no more features than one or two of the $30 programs.

Going even lower in price, we can find some bargains at the bottom of the scale: free genealogy programs are available, and a few of them are worth much more than that. In fact, there are some that approach the $30 programs in capability and ease of use. This week I will focus on the better free genealogy programs.

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The following CD-ROM review was written by and is copyright by Paul Gaskell. It is published here with permission of the author:

1. Surname - an alphabetical listing of all of the surnames mentioned in the book.

2. Occupation - an alphabetical listing of all of the occupations mentioned in the book.

3. Business - an alphabetical listing of all of the businesses and organisations mentioned in the book.

4. Farms - an alphabetical listing of all farms mentioned in the book.

5. House names - an alphabetical listing of all house names listed in the book.

6. Mills - an alphabetical listing of all mills mentioned in the book.

7. Public house - an alphabetical listing of all public houses mentioned in the book.

8. Locations - an alphabetical listing of all 361 locations in the historic county of Oxfordshire mentioned in the book.

• As a photograph album, where the images appear on screen in alphabetical order of the town or village depicted.

• By category, which are as varied as "aerial photographs," "railway stations," and "public houses." There are 43 such separate categories, which are accessed via a series of hyperlinks.

• By photographer, where the images taken by each individual photographer are viewed in succession.

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New Hampshire has an important genealogical resource in the New Hampshire State Paper series, originally published 1864 - 1942. The New Hampshire Division of Archives and Records Management Office on 71 South Fruit Street, Concord, NH 03301 has released this 40-volume work in a two-CD-ROM set. The cost for the entire set on two CD's is $37.50. It is not a glitz production with any real bells and whistles; however, the scans of the pages are well done, and the images are very readable. Book dealers have copies of various volumes for this set, but locating a complete set is next to impossible. Any time a full set is assembled by a dealer it is inevitably sold in short order, and the going prices are in excess of $1,000.00.

The series was developed over many years as historians realized that important documentation relating to the formation and functioning of the state were scattered in various repositories and not always in conditions conducive to preservation. The authority of the legislature was employed to fund the project. The preface to each of these volumes covers important notes regarding the methodology used to locate the records and thus provides useful information for follow-up research. Many incidental factors of an ancestor's life can be discovered in these works.

The first CD contains Volumes 1-20 of the set. Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D.D (1799-1878), pastor of the First Congregational Church and Society in Concord, NH from 1825-1867, edited the first ten volumes. He was the State Historian from 1866-1877. These volumes contain the following papers:

• Vol. 1-7, Provincial Papers. Documents and records relating to the settlement and formation of the province of New Hampshire from 1631 through the revolutionary period. Included are documents covering Indian relations, the provincial role in the various wars, and other historically relevant events. Volume 7 ends with some early involvement with the Revolutionary War.
• Vol. 8, State Papers. This volume covers the formation of the state as it declared independence from the crown. The period covered is 1776-1781.
• Vol. 9, Town Papers. Documents relating to the settling of early New Hampshire towns.
• Vol. 10, Provincial and State Papers. Miscellaneous documents and records relating to New Hampshire including the "censuses" of 1733 and 1786.

Isaac Weare Hammond (1831-1890) served as Deputy Secretary of State under Governor Benjamin Franklin Prescott. He gathered massive amounts of early New Hampshire historical documents that had been found in various vaults and in the loft of the State House in 1878 and 1879. Those he found to be of particular value were assembled in volumes in the Secretary's office, eventually attracting the attention of interested historians, genealogists, etc., around the state. Again the legislature was called upon to ordain and fund the publication. Mr. Hammond completed volumes eleven through eighteen of the series as follows:

• Vol. 11-13, Town Papers. These volumes are similar in character of contents to volume 9, with an introduction to each town and a careful transcription of the early documents relating to the formation of the town. In some instances early residents are found here that are not found anywhere else in records pertaining to a town.
• Vol. 14-17, Revolutionary Rolls. State of New Hampshire rolls and documents relating to soldiers of the Revolution. This documentation was very incomplete, due to the fragmented nature of the surviving records. Volume 30 uncovered additional information regarding New Hampshire's participation. The New Hampshire Historical Society’s Tuck Library has a combined index covering these four volumes.
• Vol. 18, Miscellaneous provincial and state papers 1725-1800.

The Hon. Albert Stillman Batchellor (1850-1913) of Littleton, NH, was the next editor, who assumed the position in October 1890 under Governor David Harvey Goodell and worked until his death on 15 June 1913. He oversaw the publication of volumes nineteen through thirty-one. Volumes 19 and 20 are on the first CD; Volumes 21 through 31 are found on the second CD. These are as follows:

• Vol. 19, Provincial papers including a collection relating to the border dispute with Massachusetts.
• Vol. 20-22, Journal of the Senate and House of Representatives and the records of the President and Council from the beginning of the political year 1784-5 to the 1792-3. These records represent the first workings of the state government under the newly adopted constitution, which replaced the 1776 temporary constitution. Also included are Biographical Sketches of pertinent political figures: Nathaniel Adams, George Atkinson, Josiah Bartlett, John Taylor Gilman, Pierse Long, Simeon Olcott, John Parker, John Pickering, Nathaniel Rogers, Jonathan Mitchell Sewall, Amos Shepard, Ebenezer Smith, Ebenezer Thompson, Christopher Toppan, Timothy Walker, Benjamin West, Joseph Badger, Benjamin Bellows, Jonathan Blanchard, Joshua Brackett, John Calfe, Joseph Cilley, John Dudley, Abiel Foster, Jonathan Freeman, William Gardner, Joseph Gilman, Nicholas Gilman, John Langdon, Woodbury Langdon, Samuel Livermore, John Sullivan, Meshech Weare and Paine Wingate.
• Vol. 23, State of New Hampshire documents found in the Public Record Office in London relating to the province of New Hampshire.
• Vol. 24-29, Town Charters. Masonian Papers relating to township grants, the border dispute and Masonian controversy. Volume 29 includes additional documents relating to the Masonian patent which had surfaced from foreign archives and private collections with notations to earlier volumes for clear presentation of chronological progression of the arduous evolution of the title of ownership of New Hampshire. Information herein assists the family researcher in understanding competing claims for land their ancestors may have settled. These six volumes may stand alone as a set.
• Vol. 30, Revolutionary Documents. This is New Hampshire's equivalent to the Massachusetts Sailors and Soldiers series. The work here differs in that documents are presented chronologically with a complete index to find an individual in the records. It includes all signers of the association tests, (amounting to a census for the state in 1776, understanding that some towns did not require soldiers fighting for the cause to sign.) New Hampshire men in the Massachusetts Rev. War Rolls are given. Next is the publication of information regarding New Hampshire veterans from various US Rev. Pension Rolls. Finally, miscellaneous rolls and other documents discovered after the publication of volumes 14-17 are included. The index covers town names as well as individual names. This expanded work still does not cover all Revolutionary Soldiers from NH which may be found in private or individual town records.
• Vol. 31, Probate Records found from 1635 to 1717. Some of these records for Hampton families have been made available online by the Lane Memorial Library in Hampton, NH. Ancestry.com has the scanned images of the probate records from 1635 through 1753 online in their paid subscription service.

Henry Harrison Metcalf (1841-1932), who was appointed on July 11, 1913 by Governor Samuel D. Felker, continued the probate work started by his predecessor. Under his supervision volumes 32 and 33 were printed as follows:

• Vol. 32-33, Probate Records found from 1718 to 1740. (See Vol. 31 above for more information.)

Ottis Grant Hammond (1869-1944) assisted the later two men in their work. Mr. Hammond completed the project, publishing volumes 34 through 40 as follows:

• Vol. 34-39, Probate Records found from 1741 to 1771. (See Vol. 31 above for more information.)

• Vol. 40, Court Records in New Hampshire and Province Deeds Vol. 1 1640-1653.

The search feature of Adobe Reader is not able to locate individual words because the pages of the books are scanned as images, not as text. When either CD is inserted in the CD ROM drive, depending on how your system operates, a window may pop up that displays twenty PDF files. (If your system does not launch a display window, just go to Windows Explorer and select your CD drive to display the files.) Each file represents a volume of the set; CD one contains volumes one through twenty, and CD two has volumes twenty-one through forty. Double clicking on any volume opens Adobe Reader and displays the title page of the volume, which has been filmed near the end of the file. Scrolling down brings the viewer to the Introduction and then Contents of the volume. Scrolling up brings the viewer to the index at the end of the volume.

Once a desired topic or name has been located with a corresponding page number, the viewer may click on the "pages tab" at the left side of the screen. A narrow frame appears on the left margin with thumbnails of each page and a scroll bar. This allows ease of location of the desired page in the volume. After scrolling to the desired page, a double click of the thumbnail brings the viewer to the identified page in the volume. If one wants to just read through a volume, a button at the bottom of the screen allows you to move to the beginning of the file with a single click.

This set does not include a combined index. Just like the printed set, each volume is separately indexed. Frank C. Mevers, PhD Director/State Archivist at the Archives, has been creating a combined index. He is currently working to complete the last five volumes, having previously completed volumes one through thirty-five. For more information, contact the Archives at the address above or call at (603) 271-2236.

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For two members of the Morse Society, a routine research trip has turned into an unexpected mission: the preservation of a nearly-lost ancestral treasure that is under imminent threat of being obliterated and lost to us forever.

It was pure chance that one of the Medfield (Massachusetts) Historical Society's most active and knowledgeable members was on hand the day of our visit, and even more fortunate that she casually mentioned a site locally known as the Samuel Morse cellar hole. Jane M. Morse and I are descendants of this Samuel's grandfather - the Samuel Morse who settled in Medfield in 1635 - so we leaped at this revelation.

Medfield historians believe the mentioned site to be the location of colonial Lieutenant Samuel Morse's home, which was the first Medfield house burned by Wampanoag Indians during King Philip's War. According to the History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts 1650-1886, edited by William S. Tilden in 1887, "Samuel3 (Joseph2, Samuel1) had a portion of his father's and of his grandfather's estate. He is known to have had a house in 1663, which stood on a little knoll a short distance east of the junction of Main and Pound Streets. It was burned by the Indians in 1676 and was never rebuilt. The cellar is yet visible."

Tilden continued to tell the story of Lt. Samuel Morse finding an Indian hiding in his hay barn early that February morning. He roused his family and hurried them to the local garrison, turning to watch his house burn to the ground. It is believed that Samuel's early morning discovery and assumed prompt sounding of the alarm warned the rest of the town of King Philip's presence before the marauders' plans for attack were complete, and thus many other homesteads in Medfield were saved.

Not only did our local historian know where Samuel's cellar hole was, but she offered to take us to see it. It turns out it is way into the woods, on a private piece of land that has recently fallen by inheritance into the ownership of an out-of-state property holder. It is accessible only by marching through abutting private property. There is no marker and no way of knowing it exists except simply by knowing!

We trekked along a private driveway and off into the wet underbrush, following our guide through the brambles to a slight knoll and a clear depression in the ground, next to a large boulder. Aside from an obviously man-made, ancient bore hole in this boulder and evidence of some rock lining under the leaves, the cellar hole site could simply have been a natural hollow. Of course, we noted the site's exact latitude and longitude with our GPS device. But with all respect to the technology available today, tracing the footsteps of our ancestors was an incomparable experience.

Now, over three hundred years after Samuel alerted the town, a new alarm was sounded as we made our way out of the woods. Our exit had taken us into the back yard of an abutting private yard. We made our way politely down the driveway and back out onto Main Street, but we'd been sighted. A very pretty young woman followed us and wanted to know, understandably, just what we were doing walking through her land. As Jane explained that we were from the Medfield Historical Society and were viewing an ancient cellar hole, she admitted she'd heard stories from her neighbors about the potentially historic site. However, she also mentioned she was in the process of contacting the new owner of this land abutting hers because she wanted to add it to her own property, and hoped to build there!

We came away from that day amazed at what we'd seen: an ancient ancestral cellar hole buried deep in the woods on documented original Morse lands. But we were likewise stunned to discover, by shear chance, the imminent threat that now hovered over our recent find, and we suddenly understood the vulnerability of this significant historic spot.

The curious landowner's unwitting alert has now spawned a project to preserve - or at least mark - this important site. The task at hand is to date the site and find evidence of a major fire in or around 1676. A member of the Medfield Archeological Advisory Committee described the results of a surface survey done last year as "very evocative and very exciting." She explained, "I think it is worth spending some money on, especially since, if it is the Morse cellar hole, it is the only undisturbed 17th century habitation site in Medfield, I believe."

She recommended a well-respected archeologist in this field, who also expressed great enthusiasm for the potential of this project. She outlined a plan for an initial analysis, which includes a permit application and report writing, mapping, conducting some metal-detection testing, and digging of shovel test pits to look for evidence of artifacts and possible burning.

Members of the Morse Society have gotten fired up about this project and hope to raise the $2500 needed for the excavation. If, indeed, this project can prove what history and local legend have always portrayed, we have a significant piece of history to share and hopefully preserve.

If you would like to contribute to this effort, checks payable to The Morse Society and clearly marked "Medfield Cellar Hole Project" can be mailed to Pam Cerutti at 55 Brigham St, Northboro, MA 01532.

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Smallpox killed millions before being exterminated. These days, researchers are no longer able to study the disease that was eradicated a generation ago. However, it has returned to public consciousness as a potentially devastating weapon for bioterrorists.

Librarian Susanne Caro recently was leafing through an 1888 book on Civil War medicine when she spied a small, yellowed envelope tucked between the pages. Freeing it, she read the inscription, "scabs from vaccination of W.B. Yarrington's children" in the corner, with the signature "Dr. W.D. Kelly," the book's author. She elected to not open it, but she did contact authorities. Now the envelope rests in a freezer at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, awaiting a battery of tests. Researchers are excited about the possibilities of new research on old germs.

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Bill Iahn had few memories of his only child besides two pictures: one showed him as a young soldier with a dimple-chinned baby in a high chair, and another was a portrait of his son on a rocking horse with the inscription, "To My Daddy, Dec. 25, 1945." A divorce shortly thereafter resulted in Iahn's ex-wife spiriting the baby away with a promise to the father that he would never see the son again.

The mother remarried and changed the baby's surname. She was believed to be in Arizona. Bill Iahn searched through phone books over the years but never found a clue. Even an Arizona state trooper who was Iahn's friend long ago tried to find the baby but was unable to do so. In recent years, his other relatives scoured the Internet. At age 87, Iahn had given up on seeing his son's face again.

Then one day this fall, Iahn's great-nephew, Denny Huff, was chatting with a friend and mentioned his Uncle Bill's long-lost son. The friend happened to be a genealogy buff who conducted some research on Ancestry.com. She typed the name William Iahn and found his marriage to Thelma Theodosia Harold. Checking a bit further, the friend found Thelma's death listed in 1984. Beneath it was an intriguing line:

Looking still further produced a record of Thelma's marriage to a man named Treacy, not too long after her divorce from Iahn.

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The genealogy of a Mongol family related to the descendants of the great Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan has been included in China's list of ancient archives. The eight-meter-long (24 feet) document of Tulin Gujen's family lists 14 generations with over 1,900 Mongols, most of whom served as high-ranking officials, from 1635 to the early 1900s, said Zhao Yunpeng, deputy head of the Liaoning Provincial Archives.

The genealogy, reportedly the largest ever found, is kept at the archives of Harqin Left Wing Mongolian Autonomous County, west of Liaoning Province, northeast China.

I have heard other claims of different documents being "the largest in the world," especially in the Arab world. I also wrote about a 730-foot family tree chart (which may not have as many names) in the November 10, 2003, edition of this newsletter. I am not sure if this newly-discovered Mongol genealogy really is bigger or not. However, it is especially impressive when you realize that only a few years ago the study of genealogy was repressed in Mongolia and in China as an unwarranted capitalist influence. To even read about such a genealogy being publicized by the communist authorities is a rather amazing change.

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Thanks.

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