DNA testing done by the Fort Worth Police Department confirms a woman matched online by genealogy sites is a North Texas family's missing sister.

The Fort Worth Police Department says they have completed official DNA testing confirming the identity of a woman who was reunited with her family last year after being abducted as a toddler more than five decades ago.

Melissa Highsmith went missing in 1971 when, at just 22 months old, she was allegedly taken from her parents' Fort Worth home by a babysitter. More than 50 years later, the Highsmith family found Melissa through DNA testing shared on genealogy sites.

Since Melissa was reunited with her family late last year, the Fort Worth Police Department has been working to complete their DNA testing. On Thursday, they confirmed that testing verified Highsmith's identity.

"It is our hope that this test result will offer additional closure for the Highsmith family," police said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

The family said a genealogist recommended they share DNA with Ancestry and 23andMe and see if it returned any matches. The family said their mother was hesitant since she had done DNA tests with six different women throughout the years, and they all came back negative.

"Every time my mother got her hopes up. After 51 years, she didn't want to submit another DNA test. She was tired and she was hurt and guilty from carrying this all these years," said Victoria Highsmith, Melissa's sister. "I'm thankful that we got her to agree to submit her DNA … It is because of that, and my dad submitting, that we were able to find Melissa."

Victoria said they didn't find Melissa through her own DNA sample but through her children's DNA and that the match came back quickly after both of her parents submitted their samples.

"Within three weeks we found my sister. It was like, 'Boom, boom, boom,' we found her," said Victoria Highsmith.

You can read the rest of the story at: https://tinyurl.com/243ppy3m.

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The deadline for submitting nomination forms and supporting documentation for the annual International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Achievement Awards and the Stern/Stedman Grants is May 15, 2023, at 7 pm EDT (USA). Awards will be announced during the 43rd Annual IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, to be held in London from July 30th to August 3rd. 

Stern/Stedman Grants

The purpose of these grants is to encourage institutions or organizations to pursue projects, activities, and acquisitions that provide new or enhanced resources to benefit those researching Jewish genealogy. 

For details about the grants, please visit the IAJGS website and consult the general Award Rules and Criteria and the special Stern/Stedman Award Criteria. For information regarding the current committee members, and to submit a nomination, go to the Grant Nomination Form. 

The grants may only be awarded to a not-for-profit institution or organization or charity (and may not be awarded to individuals). Nominations may be submitted by any individual or organization, and self-nomination by organizations is permitted. 

For further information, please contact Carole Montello, Chair of the IAJGS Stern/Stedman Grant Committee, at carole.montello@iajgs.org.

A new project at the University of New Mexico seeks to record oral histories and gather photos of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. who are the descendants of formerly enslaved Black people.

The big picture: The multi-state initiative is part of a growing number of international efforts investigating the often overlooked history and lives of Afro Mexicans.

• Mexico acknowledged Afro Mexicans in its Census for the first time in 2020.
• Many Latinos in the U.S. confronted their families' racist attitudes toward Black people after the murder of George Floyd.

Details: The AfroChicanx Digital Archives, funded in part by the Mellon Foundation, held a three-day event last month in Albuquerque, New Mexico, during which scholars recorded interviews with Mexicans and Mexican Americans with Black ancestry.

• Doris Careaga-Coleman, a UNM professor of Chicana and Chicano studies, said other interviews will be conducted in Tucson, Arizona, and Santa Barbara, California, later this year.
• The interviews, photos and other materials will be stored in a digital archive for researchers.

The intrigue: The project not only seeks to record stories of Afro Mexicans (people who trace their Black roots to Mexico) but also Blaxicans (a common term for children of Mexican Americans and Black Americans).

• It also seeks to identify how food from both cultures has evolved in the U.S.

Zoom out: Two out of 100 Mexicans, or around 2.5 million people, identified as Black in Mexico's 2020 Census.

• Black communities are primarily found in Veracruz — where the Spanish disembarked enslaved people from Africa — and the coast of Oaxaca and Guerrero, where Afro Indigenous traditions from colonial times endure.
• Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles and of people who fled U.S. slavery in the 1830s after Mexico outlawed the practice, live in Coahuila state, which borders the U.S.

Yes, but: An unknown number of Mexicans and Mexican Americans also are descendants of those who took part in the Underground Railroad to Mexico — loosely organized paths allowing enslaved Black people in the U.S. to escape bondage by fleeing south

• Recent research shows that between 4,000 to 10,000 enslaved Black people may have taken the trek south, Alice Baumgartner, author of "South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War," previously told Axios.

Between the lines: Mexican Americans, like other Latino groups, have to confront their own racist attitudes toward Black people, scholars say.

You can read more in an article by Russell Contreras published in the Axios web site at: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/02/afro-mexicans-history-university-of-new-mexico 

Barry Griffin must have spent many, many hours creating an online map of surnames with all data derived from the 1901 census. The information consists of thousands of Irish surnames. The result is sure to be a worthy tool for those researching their Irish genealogy.

The "Most Common Surnames" web site may be found at: https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/.

An article explaining the information, how to use the web site, and how the surnames were combined for this map (for instance, O'Neill, Oneill, ONeill and Ó Néill appear together as ONEILL) may be found in the IrishCentral web site at: https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/genealogy/irish-surname-maps.

Sussex Baptisms 

A further 269,119 records have been added to this existing collection, with the transcriptions including key biographical detail to help you build your family tree: name, birth and baptism date, location, parents’ names, and sometimes the father’s occupation.  

Sussex Marriages 

These new 268,217 records cover 1504-1937 and will help you uncover your ancestor’s date and place of marriage, their spouse, occupations, and often the fathers’ names and occupations too.  

Sussex Burials 

If your ancestor was buried in Sussex between 1274 and 1996, they may appear here. Another 301,731 records make up this release, and often include the age at death, death date, burial date and burial location.  

Newspapers 

221,850 pages have been added this week, encompassing three new titles and updates to a further 27.  

New titles: 

·         Campbeltown Courier, 1875, 1881-1892 

·         Devizes and Wilts Advertiser, 1858-1871, 1873-1916 

·         Marlborough Times, 1859-1860, 1877-1878, 1880-1899 

Updated titles: 

·         Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 1969 

·         Bristol Evening Post, 1978 

·         Buckinghamshire Advertiser, 1950-1951 

·         Bury Free Press, 1978 

·         Egham & Staines News, 1897 

·         Gloucester Citizen, 1876 

·         Grimsby & County Times and Lincolnshire Advertiser, 1908-1909 

·         Hammersmith & Fulham Independent, 1989 

·         Haverhill Echo, 1890-1896, 1898-1940, 1944-1946, 1971-1975, 1981 

·         Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner, 1857-1860, 1873, 1886, 1889, 1891, 1893, 1897, 1899, 1901-1908, 1910, 1913-1924, 1926-1932, 1934-1937, 1953, 1955-1957, 1959, 1962, 1965, 1970-1972, 1974-1976, 1981 

·         Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 1927, 1971, 1975, 1984-1985 

·         Liverpool Evening Express, 1905 

·         Liverpool Weekly Mercury, 1912 

·         Middlesex County Times, 1927-1930 

·         Newmarket Journal, 1918-1920 

·         Newquay Express and Cornwall County Chronicle, 1905-1922 

·         North Wales Weekly News, 1987 

·         Nottingham Evening News, 1897 

·         Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 1876, 1880-1960, 1987-1988, 1990-1994 

·         South Wales Daily Post, 1912 

·         South Wales Echo, 1992 

·         Southall Gazette, 1981 

·         Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, 1919, 1923 

·         Sunday Sun (Newcastle), 1924, 1927, 1929, 1989 

·         Surrey Mirror, 1986 

·         Torbay Express and South Devon Echo, 1925 

·         Western Daily Press, 1991 

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced the launch of William Bache’s Silhouettes Album, a microsite featuring new research and digitized images for 1,800 cut-paper silhouettes by Anglo-American artist William Bache. In addition to presenting portraits of famous figures like Thomas Jefferson and Martha Washington, the digital project restores the identity of previously unknown individuals rarely encountered in Federal-era portraiture—from traveling entertainers to tavern keepers and dance instructors.

Funded by Getty through its Paper Project initiative, the digital platform features hi-res images, a biography and interactive timeline of Bache’s life, conservation reports and more for this important example of one of the most affordable forms of portraiture in early U.S. history.

In 2008, Smithsonian conservators discovered the fragile papers of the Bache album contained arsenic and could not be safely handled or displayed without special precautions. The National Portrait Gallery used Getty’s support to overcome these limitations by fully digitizing the entire volume. Robyn Asleson, the lead curator and curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, also completed extensive research that confirms the identities of hundreds of sitters in New Orleans and generates a new understanding of traveling portrait artists at the turn of the 19th century.

“Although the Portrait Gallery has owned this album of silhouettes for over 20 years, it took the support of the Getty and the digital resources that are now available to finally unlock its secrets,” Asleson said. “Digging deeply into the circumstances of the album has shed fascinating new light on the artistic practice of William Bache and has yielded a few surprises, such as his extraordinary mobility in pursuit of new markets and his extensive use of advertising to promote himself.”

Asleson and research assistant Elizabeth Isaacson scanned through Ancestry.com, digitized newspapers, history books, baptismal records, wills and other legal documents to unveil the identity of sitters, including many of Afro Caribbean descent for whom no other likeness is known to exist. Users of the microsite can now “flip” through pages of the album and click on high-res images of each portrait to learn the sitter’s full name, lifespan or years active and the date their portrait was created.  

Another major discovery came when Asleson expanded her research to Spanish-language materials, which verified Bache worked in Cuba producing portraits in the largely untapped market. The revelation revealed that approximately 1,000 silhouettes in the album were made in the Caribbean, from Catholic priests wearing birettas to sitters of African heritage. 

You can read more in an article in the artdependence.com web site at: https://www.artdependence.com/articles/smithsonian-s-national-portrait-gallery-reveals-identities-of-hundreds-of-people-in-early-19th-century-portrait-album/ 

Was your ancestor’s silhouette included? Probably not. After all, 1,800 is a lot of people although only a fraction of the millions who lived in the United States and Cuba at that time. Still, you won’t know for sure until you check the site out. You might find a very pleasant surprise.

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

Today, we published new federal regulations with standards for digitizing permanent federal records. The regulations are in 36 CFR 1236, Subpart E. These regulations will go into effect on June 5, 2023.

The regulations establish standards for digitizing permanent paper records and photographic prints. They do not contain standards for digitizing film records at this time. 

When agencies follow these standards, they may transfer the digitized records to NARA and destroy the source records. However, destruction is dependent on agencies having an approved records schedule to authorize disposition. 

We will be issuing a new GRS 4.5 that covers digitizing records. The GRS and regulations will work in tandem. The regulations provide guidance on how to digitize permanent records so the digitized records can be transferred to NARA. The GRS provides disposition authority to destroy the source records. 

We have developed a website to provide information about digitizing federal records. We are developing additional products and training resources to help agencies implement NARA’s digitization standards for permanent records. As we develop those, we will add them to this page.

We recognize that these regulations will have a significant impact on how agencies manage their records. We expect there will have many questions as people become familiar with these new requirements. Please be on the lookout for a future invite to join an upcoming webinar to discuss these new digitization regulations in greater detail. In the meantime, if you need further information, please contact rmstandards@nara.gov.

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The following is a press release written by the Maine Department of Education:

The Maine DOE is accepting applications for a pilot program with the American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society.  Help students think like a historian and learn how to trace families back in time. Receive inquiry-based lessons that incorporate authentic methodologies used by professional genealogists. Lessons guide students through the process of conducting family history research, and students will hone their research skills using primary sources and case studies from local Native American and African American history. Go beyond family trees and help students make real-world, personal connections to history.

Lesson Plans that Support Students to:

Case Studies

Inclusive Teaching Strategies

This pilot begins with an in-person workshop in June.  During the 2023-2024 school year, the American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society will provide two virtual sessions to support teachers using these resources in their classrooms.  Additionally, the DOE will conduct a monthly virtual PLC to provide a space for teachers to collaborate.

In-person workshop	Virtual Follow-Up Sessions	Virtual PLC
Date: Monday, June 26, 2023 Time: 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM Location: Maine DOE, Augusta, ME	Date: October & March Time: TBD Location: Zoom	Date: Once a month beginning in November Time: TBD Location: Zoom

For more information about this program, please contact Jaime Beal, Maine DOE Interdisciplinary Instruction Specialist.