The following announcement was written by the (U.S.) National Genealogical Society:

The National Genealogical Society (NGS) is excited to announce the appointment of genealogy educator Kimberly Powell as its new director of education. With over twenty years of experience in genealogy instruction and course design, Powell brings extensive expertise to her new role.

Starting her employment on 1 May 2024, Powell will spearhead the implementation of NGS's vision for the future of genealogy education and learning. 

Prior to joining NGS, Powell held several positions as a professional genealogy writer and educator. From 2000 through 2016, she was the genealogy expert for About.com. She has been a faculty member and course developer in Boston University's Genealogy Studies program since 2018. She also operates Level Up Genealogy, a business committed to providing genealogy education, mentoring, and accountability.

Powell is a longstanding member of NGS and the Association of Professional Genealogists, where she served as a director and officer, including a term as president from 2014 to 2015. She also contributed her skills as the assistant director of the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) and as an instructor at SLIG, NGS's GRIP Genealogy Institute, and the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). Renowned for her expertise, Powell is a frequent speaker and lecturer at national, state, regional, and local genealogy events.

In addition to her extensive instructional work, Powell's published works include "The Challenge of Endogamy and Pedigree Collapse" in the book Advanced Genetic Genealogy: Techniques and Case Studies (Iron Gate Publishing, 2019). She is also the author of The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy (Adams Media, 2008; 2nd ed. 2011; 3rd ed. 2014) andThe Everything Family Tree Book (Adams Media, 2006). She has contributed articles on various genealogy topics to the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, NGS Magazine, Family Tree Magazine, Who Do You Think You Are? magazine, and Everton's Genealogical Helper.

Expressing her enthusiasm about her new role, Powell said, "I am excited for the opportunity to help NGS serve its membership and our genealogy community. Thanks to Angela McGhie's exceptional leadership and vision, we have a solid foundation from which we can continue to grow. It's a privilege to join such a dynamic team and to contribute to our shared mission of excellence in genealogy education." 

Executive Director Matt Menashes, CAE, shared his excitement about Powell's appointment, stating, "We are delighted to welcome Kimberly as part of the NGS team. Her extensive background as an educator, her exceptional writing skills, her deep knowledge of the community, and her focus on the future of genealogy education make Kimberly an outstanding addition to NGS. We are thrilled to have her on board and working towards the expansion of our educational programs."

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Founded in 1903, the National Genealogical Society inspires, connects, and leads the family history community by fostering collaboration and best practices in advocacy, education, preservation, and research. We enable people, cultures, and organizations to discover the past and create a lasting legacy. The Falls Church, Virginia, based nonprofit is the premier national society for everyone, from beginners to the most advanced family historians.

In 1929 a woman named Augusta Lynch de MacKinley of Buenos Aires was in correspondence with the Office of the Chief Herald in Ireland about ongoing research into the origins of her branch of the Lynch family.

The notes from this research, which are now in the National Library1, state that the man she described as the founder of the South American branch of the family was Patrick Linch, born in 1715, son of Patrick Linch and Ines (Agnes) Blake. The family home was Lydican (or Lydecan) in the County Galway parish of Claregalway. 

GO MS 817 (12) Draft Pedigree of Lynch of Lydecan. A later version of this pedigree in GO MS 812 (31) include a fourth generation, Walter and Patrick Lynch, sons of William (d 1758).

As this research was underway in Dublin, the man who would become Patrick Lynch’s most famous descendent was beginning his life in Rosario, Argentina.  Ernesto Raphael Guevara de la Serna, better known to the world as the revolutionary Ché Guevara, was born on 14 June 1928 to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna.3

Five generations separate Ché and his Irish immigrant ancestor who settled in the area the estuary of the Río De La Planta, now Buenos Aires.   There Patrick Lynch and his children prospered. There were fortunes to be made as the settlement grew. Over the decades Lynch’s many descendants were central to the development of what became the Argentine Republic.  And the Lynch influence spread beyond Argentina. One descendant, Patricio Lynch (1825-1889) became Rear Admiral of the Chilean navy. 

You can read much more about this family’s history in an article in the IrishCentral web site at: http://bit.ly/3xZWeAd

The following is a press release written by the folks at Ancestry:

As part of a philanthropic initiative to make history that is at risk of being forgotten available to everyone for free, Ancestry® – the global leader in family history – announced it has published and made freely available on its site the first comprehensive list of over 125,000 persons of Japanese descent who were unjustly imprisoned between December 1942 and January 1948.

Originally compiled by the Irei Project, the list of names was first published in a 1,000-page book (The Ireichō) at the Japanese American National Museum and as an online monument (The Ireizō). Now, people around the world will also be able to digitally search the collection on Ancestry to gain critical information about their family history including names, birthdates, and incarceration locations.

“We’re proud to partner with Ancestry to make this accurate and comprehensive list of every person of Japanese heritage incarcerated during WWII available to everyone,” says Duncan Ryuken Williams, director of the Irei Project. “By honoring their names, we proudly represent their individuality, their personhood, and their dignity, not afforded to them in their unjust incarceration.”

By publishing this collection of names and making it available on its site for free, Ancestry is further helping to ensure the facts and the experiences of those who were unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. Army, Department of Justice, and War Relocation Authority (WRA) are preserved for future generations. 

When paired with the almost 350,000 records related to Japanese incarceration already available for free within the Ancestry ecosystem, this comprehensive collection of names will allow users to better find their family and explore the other record collections from this time period to provide context and other details about their family and experience. The existing free companion collections include:

“Ancestry has a unique opportunity to preserve the stories of our country’s history, even the challenging ones, and to make that information available to the descendants of those who experienced it firsthand,” says Head of US Content and Philanthropic Initiatives, Dr. Lisa Pearl. “By making this collection and others like it available for free, we invite people to unlock more discoveries about their ancestors and honor their memory.”

Explore and search the new collection and others like it for free here.

About Ancestry®

Ancestry®, the global leader in family history, empowers journeys of personal discovery to enrich lives. With our unparalleled collection of more than 60 billion records, over 3 million subscribers and over 25 million people in our growing DNA network, customers can discover their family story and gain a new level of understanding about their lives. Over the past 40 years, we’ve built trusted relationships with millions of people who have chosen us as the platform for discovering, preserving, and sharing the most important information about themselves and their families.

About the Irei Project

The Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American incarceration is a multi-faceted project that seeks to address the attempted erasure of those individuals of Japanese heritage who experienced wartime incarceration by memorializing their names. By placing their names front and center and memorializing each incarceree as a distinct individual instead of a generalized community, the Irei National Monument Project seeks to expand and re-envision what a monument is through three distinct, but interlinking elements: a sacred book of names as monument (Ireichō), a website monument (Ireizō), and sculptural installations (Ireihi).

At long last, digital copies of The Winchester Star dating as far back as 1896 are available online for free, courtesy of the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at Handley Regional Library.

"When I took on the position of archives manager, one of my goals was to get The Star digitized because I know a lot of people come in here and want to look up articles," said Lorna Loring, who succeeded Rebecca A. "Becky" Ebert as lead archivist after Ebert retired in June. "It's really important because The Winchester Star is the newspaper of record for this area."

The Handley archives already had copies of almost every edition of The Star, but they were all on microfilm — reels of tiny images depicting newspaper pages that are enlarged when displayed on a microfilm reader — and could only be viewed at Handley Library in downtown Winchester. However, the individual stories printed in those editions were not cataloged.

"It's very challenging when someone comes in and says, 'I want to see a story about my uncle from, like, 1973 or '74,'" Loring said on Monday. "I have to sit them down and say, 'Here's a microfilm reader, here's 24 rolls of microfilm. You just need to go through them.'"

Now, that person can just type the uncle's name into a computer to find every Winchester Star article and photo in which he appeared.

Loring said there are still a handful of editions from The Star's 128-year history that need to be digitized, including those from the paper's first week of operations, but the project is 99% complete.

You can read more in an article by Brian Brehm published in the Winchester Star at: https://bit.ly/44gpgrm

The following announcement was written by the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO):

The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has added historical volumes of the United States Statutes at Large (Statutes at Large) to GovInfo, the one-stop site for authentic, published information for all three branches of the Federal Government. The newly added Volumes 1–64 (1789–1950) date back to 1789 and include the text of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, amendments to the Constitution, treaties with Indians and foreign nations, presidential proclamations, and treaties and international agreements approved by the Senate. GPO added these Volumes to the previously existing collection covering the years 1951–2018. The entire Statutes at Large collection now covers 1789–2018 (1st–115th Congresses).

Statutes at Large: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/STATUTE

“Congratulations to our GPO teammates on providing the public easy access to these historic documents. The American people are the real beneficiaries of having another collection on GovInfo that dates to our country’s humble beginnings,” said GPO Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern. “This digitization project is just another example of how GPO is delivering on its vision of an America Informed.”

The Statutes at Large is the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress. The Statutes at Large is prepared and published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Volumes were added through collaborative digital imaging efforts between the Library of Congress and GPO.

Users may browse each volume on GovInfo by Bills Enacted into Laws, Private Laws, Presidential Proclamations, Public Laws, Treaties, and other levels of granularity. In addition to these digitally imaged files, GPO will also make available a version of each document in the United States Legislative Markup (USLM) XML schema in the future.

GPO is the Federal Government’s resource for publishing trusted information for the Federal Government to the American people. The GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications of Congress, the White House, and other Federal agencies in digital and print formats. GPO provides for permanent public access to Federal Government information at no charge through www.GovInfo.gov and partnerships with approximately 1,100 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit www.gpo.gov.

Thanks to our partners at the Raleigh Fire Museum, NC Digital is pleased to announced that even more records from the Raleigh Fire Department are now available online! These records cover an amazing variety of aspects to the daily life and operation of Raleigh’s firefighters, including financial and municipal reports, fire academy graduation programs, and certificates of award. They will almost double our coverage of the Raleigh Fire Department, which ranges from as far as 1947 to as recent as 2002.

Without a doubt, the highlight of this batch is an issue of The N.C. Fire Service News, a state-wide publication created by and for North Carolina’s firefighters. The pages of this magazine are absolutely full of articles covering fire news, including stories on an antique model T fire engine, the annual fire conference in Asheville, and a story on firefighters in Durham “only” working 56 hours a week! Reading N.C. Fire Service News is a fascinating glimpse into a community of dedicated and passionate professionals supporting each other with advice on how best to protect the public. And, perhaps more superficially, the aesthetics of the 70’s make the pages of the magazine even more engaging.

You can read N.C. Fire Service News, along with the rest of the new records from the Raleigh Fire Museum, online at NC Digital here. Interested in learning more about the history of fire safety? Take a look at our partner pages for Raleigh Fire Museum and the Greensboro Firefighters History Book Committee online at NC Digital!

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan has launched a digital library of international documents, which contains information on the main directions of the country’s domestic and foreign policy.

The site is available in Turkmen, English and Russian. The online resource is designed to increase the availability of information about the activities of Turkmenistan in the global arena.

The virtual library contains extensive information about the neutral status of Turkmenistan, its participation in multilateral cooperation formats, and peace and security initiatives.

The resource docslibrary.gov.tm also highlights the country’s contribution to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, parliamentary, environmental, energy, transport and cultural diplomacy, as well as sports diplomacy.

From Slashdot.org:

The U.S. publishing industry is driven by celebrity authors and repeat bestsellers, according to testimony from a blocked merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. Only 50 authors sell over 500,000 copies annually, with 96% of books selling under 1,000 copies. Publishing houses spend most of their advance money on celebrity books, which along with backlist titles like The Bible, account for the bulk of their revenue and fund less commercially successful books.

The following is an announcement written by the folks at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy:

The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy is now accepting applications for Hive Minders for SLIG 2025 and Spring Virtual 2025.

Hive Minders help our virtual classrooms function smoothly, addressing challenges that arise. If you are comfortable with technology, consider applying to serve during one of the courses offered during SLIG 2025 or Spring Virtual 2025.

Hive Minder job responsibilities include:  

• starting Zoom for each weekly class session;

 • managing closed captioning, breakout rooms, polls, and recordings;

 • assisting faculty and students with light tech and announcements;

 • taking attendance with the provided Airtable attendance tracker;

 • keeping SLIG staff aware of classroom and student issues or concerns.

Hive Minders receive:  

• a tuition waiver for the course for which they serve as Hive Minder;

 • training to be a Hive Minder;

 • a Hive Minder reference packet;

 • assistance and support from SLIG's Virtual Coordinator, Tech Assistant, and Director for emergencies and questions.

Courses offered during SLIG 2025 may be viewed here. Courses offered during SLIG Spring Virtual 2025 may be viewed here.

To apply to be a Hive Minder during SLIG 2025 or Spring Virtual 2025, please complete the application at this Airtable link. The deadline for applying is June 30, 2024. All applicants will receive notification via email whether they have been selected.

The following is a press release issued by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

In celebration of the landmark Supreme Court decision that altered the landscape of education in the United States, the National Archives presents “The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, 70 Years Later” on Thursday, May 16, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. 

The program will feature a conversation with law clerks of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Speakers include Sheryll D. Cashin of Georgetown Law School and Randall L Kennedy of Harvard Law School, and the conversation will be moderated by Michael K. Powell, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. 

“The Brown decision was a pivotal moment in our nation’s history, laying the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement and our ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union,” said Dr. Colleen Shogan, Archivist of the United States.  “At the National Archives we hold the records of this case, and all other Supreme Court decisions. So I’m glad we can bring together this panel of esteemed jurists who personally knew Justice Marshall to help us explore the impact and legacy of this watershed decision.”

Welcome and opening remarks will be provided by Dr. Shogan, Rodney Slater, chair and president of the National Archives Foundation, and Anthony Lewis, vice president of Public Policy at Verizon. The program will be livestreamed to audiences nationwide on the National Archives YouTube channel. 

"The Foundation is proud to commemorate the 70th anniversary of this landmark decision, and to delve into the demand for and significance of it,” said Rodney Slater, National Archives Foundation Board Chair. “The Foundation is proud to help bring these important conversations to the fore, highlighting moments throughout history that ultimately altered the landscape of our country."

The event will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Building, located at 701 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC.

In-person attendees should use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street NW. Metro is accessible on the Green Line at the Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station. 

This program is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of Verizon.

About the National Archives

The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent federal agency that serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our government so people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. The National Archives ensures continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and the actions of their government. From the Declaration of Independence to accounts of ordinary Americans, the holdings of the National Archives directly touch the lives of millions of people. The agency supports democracy, promotes civic education, and facilitates historical understanding of our national experience. The National Archives carries out its mission through a nationwide network of archives, records centers, and Presidential Libraries and online at www.archives.gov.

About the National Archives Foundation

The National Archives Foundation is an independent nonprofit that increases public awareness of the National Archives, inspires a deeper appreciation of our country’s heritage, and encourages citizen engagement in our democracy. The Foundation generates financial and creative support for National Archives exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives, introducing America’s records to people around the U.S. and the world. Learn more at www.archivesfoundation.org.