Historian Jessica Marie Johnson leads several teams tapping into the power of datasets to uncover new truths about Black history. Black Beyond Data is part of an occasional series that highlights Johns Hopkins faculty whose work examines issues around racial inequity, discrimination, and structural racism.

On a spring day in 1751, Charlotte, an enslaved teenage girl, went on a quest to petition the wife of the governor of Louisiana to grant her freedom. Charlotte had become acquainted with a ship captain recently arrived from Martinique, Sieur Pierre Louis Batard. He had promised to help Charlotte arrange an audience with the governor's wife, Madame de Vaudreuil.

On this May morning, Batard sent word to Charlotte that de Vaudreuil was willing to meet. Charlotte hurried to Batard's home, but he was not there. She spent the day awaiting his arrival in his house. But as evening arrived, so did a group of soldiers sent by Sr. d'Erneville, the man who both had fathered her and owned her. Charlotte hid under some mosquito netting in Batard's bedroom. When the soldiers discovered her, she asked them to look at the situation from her perspective; she just needed to wait a little longer for Batard to return. Charlotte explained that if they returned her to d'Erneville, he "would have her whipped unmercifully." She even offered them a sum of cash, 100 livres, that she had carried with her.

"Charlotte did more than run away from her father and owner," Jessica Marie Johnson writes in her book, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. The book won the 2021 Wesley-Logan Prize from the American Historical Association. It also won the 2020 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History, among other accolades. "She combined flight, appeal, allyship, and willfulness in her defiant bid to escape bondage. She demanded to be heard."

Telling Black stories

Johnson is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins and a non-resident fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. She discovered Charlotte's story buried in the Records of the French Superior Council of Louisiana and the Louisiana Historical Center. Charlotte's bravery, quick thinking, and confidence emerge from these records, much as the courageous young woman emerged from her hiding place in the ship captain's room.

This is one of Johnson's passions as a historian. To tell the stories of Black people—particularly Black women—in the Atlantic African diaspora during the centuries of slavery. She highlights the relationships, warmth, and intimacy they created despite the harshest of circumstances, as well as the ways in which they wielded intelligence, creativity, and interpersonal skills to strive for freedom.

But Johnson is equally committed to opening access to the myriad amounts of data that contain information about Black life and Black people, both historical and contemporary. Databases that contain information drawn from records as disparate as the manifest of slave ships, court records, and African American newspapers. She presides over and consults on numerous research projects in which other scholars are mining data sets. Their goal: to discover the lives of Black people who would otherwise be lost to time.

The full story is much longer but you can find it in its entirety at: https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/06/02/black-beyond-data-jessica-marie-johnson/.

Google has become the primary tool for all sorts of online searches. I use Google every day for genealogy and other searches. I perform searches for several ancestors, searches for any information about a small town where my ancestors lived, searches for any information about the small town where I grew up, any mentions of my newsletter, any mention of my cousins with the unusual surname, and a number of other topics. I perform these searches daily, always looking for any new information that appears online.

Of course, logging onto Google every day and manually performing such searches is tedious. Besides, I am forgetful. I don't always remember to perform the searches as often as I should.

Luckily, Google provides a solution for me and for millions of others who wish to perform repetitive searches of Google's billions of links, looking for new information. In fact, Google will perform a search for me every day or every week and even send any newly-found results to me as email messages. Google remembers these tasks far better than I do. If I forget, Google still remembers and sends me an email message with the results, if any. Even better, Google only sends each new piece of information one time. I never see repeats. Each new email message contains only new results that Google has found since the last email message was sent.

The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results—such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or scientific research—that match the user's search term(s)

Google Alerts will monitor almost anything on Google that you specify. You choose the search terms in exactly the same manner as a normal search on Google. You specify if you want to search only Google News, only blogs, only videos, only discussions, or the option that I use most of the time: search everything. You can also specify to search once a day, once a week, or "as it happens." However, if you search for popular topics, the "as it happens" option can generate a lot of email messages! I'd suggest starting with the DAILY option at first, then experiment later.

You can enter your search terms and then click on PREVIEW to see an example of the results you'll receive. If you are overwhelmed with too many results, you can change the search terms and click on PREVIEW again to see the modified search. Once you are satisfied with the results, click on CREATE ALERT. From then on, you simply check your email messages occasionally to see the results.

Should you later change your mind, you can modify the search terms at any time or even stop the email messages completely. You remain in control.

Google Alerts are great for many purposes, including:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• keeping current on a company in which you have made an investment
• getting the latest updates on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams
• searching for ancestral information
• and probably a few thousand other uses.

The best feature of Google Alerts? It is available FREE of charge.

Here are some typical Google Alert search terms I use:

"Washington Harvey Eastman" (That is my great-great-grandfather and I know little about him)

"Eastman family"

"Eastman genealogy"

"Dexter, Maine"

"Red Sox"

MyHeritage.com

"National Genealogical Society"

RootsTech

"Family Tree Maker"

Eastman newsletter

I'd suggest you use your imagination to create the search terms that interest you.

To create your own Google Alerts, go to http://www.google.com/alerts.

Comment: I always enjoy reading the engagement announcements and birth announcements of those cousins with the unusual surname. I also appreciate reading their obituaries, although I guess "enjoy" is not the appropriate word for obits. I often know about family news before the other family members do, thanks to Google Alerts. That even includes arrest records. (You'd have to know my relatives to appreciate that information.)

Unfortunately, the search for relatives works best for unusual surnames. Don't try it for John Smith!

However, I have had some success by combining common names with towns or occupations, such as:

"John Williams" "Fountain Hills" Florida

or

"Peter Johnson" electrician

I then receive occasional email messages from Google with alerts containing those words. However, many of them are "false hits" about articles containing all of those words but referring to someone other than my relative. Even though I have to throw away some of the references by "eyeball," I still often find mentions of my relatives in the alerts. You can experiment with such searches yourself easily. If it doesn't work out, you can always delete the search. With a few carefully created search phrases, you should be able to save a lot of time and keystrokes by regularly using Google Alerts for genealogy and other topics of interest.

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

FALLS CHURCH, VA, 7 June 2022—The National Genealogical Society (NGS) is pleased to announce the publication of two, new books as part of its Research in the States series, which now covers research in thirty-one states and the tribal records of Oklahoma’s American Indians. The newest volumes are Research in New Mexico by Karen Stein Daniel, CG, and Research in Oregon, 3rd Edition, by Connie Miller Lenzen, CG, FNGS. The books are available in the NGS store in both PDF and print versions.

Both guidebooks offer family history researchers detailed information about each state’s many genealogical resources, including archives, atlases, and gazetteers; census, county, and court records; military, naturalization, and vital records; and more. The authors include the website address, physical address, and telephone number for each resource.

In Research in New Mexico, author Karen Stein Daniel discusses where to find records of both indigenous and non-indigenous people. The state is home to three Apache tribes, the Navaho Nation, and nineteen Pueblo tribes. Since 1598, Hispanics including Crypto-Jews have settled in New Mexico. By the late 1860s, Black Americans began to arrive along with French, German, Greek, Italian, and Jewish immigrants; Los Árabes from the Middle East; and South African Boers. Research in New Mexico offers readers an extensive review of genealogical resources of the people who have populated America’s 47th state.

In Research in Oregon, 3rd Edition, Connie Miller Lenzen introduces family historians to a wealth of repositories and other archival resources throughout the state. The book covers both Oregon’s many Native American tribes as well as its non-indigenous population, including White pioneers who settled in Oregon in the 1840s. Chinese began to arrive in the 1850s. They were followed by Japanese. By law, Blacks were excluded from the state until 1868 when the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution was ratified. Ethnic groups from Europe included Basques, Greeks, Irish, Swedes, and Volga Germans. Hispanic and Jewish Americans and later Iranians, Russians, and Vietnamese also settled in Oregon. Research in Oregon provides genealogists with a concise guidebook for researching their ancestors.

Research in the States series is edited by Barbara Vines Little, CG, FNGS, FUGA, FVGS. Its newest books, Research in New Mexico and Research in Oregon, 3rd Edition, are available for purchase in the NGS online store.

The Cooper Union introduces Voices from the Great Hall, an extraordinary new public resource that tells the history of New York and the nation through the words of the people who helped to shape it from the stage of the storied Great Hall. Voices from the Great Hall is a digital archive, free and accessible to anyone, and generously supported by The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. This growing collection presents all known sound and video recordings made in Cooper Union’s historic Great Hall dating back to 1941 and continuing to the present, as well as 8,900 objects, such as photographs, tickets, and fliers, related to more than 3,000 Great Hall programs dating to 1859.

“Our Great Hall, once the largest gathering place in New York City, has been an important destination where people from all walks of life have organized and presented their views on the pressing matters of their time, a legacy that continues today,” says Laura Sparks, President, The Cooper Union. “We are so grateful for the Gardiner Foundation’s leadership and commitment to preserving essential New York history. Their support has made this digital Great Hall archive possible. There is so much that we, as an engaged citizenry, can draw on and learn from these historical perspectives, and that is precisely our hope for the Voices from the Great Hall archive—that it will serve as a resource for shaping the future of our shared civic and cultural life.” 

You can read more in an announcement in The Cooper Union web site at: https://bit.ly/3axCx7r.

23andMe, which has said it plans to hire hundreds of workers in coming years, confirmed that it will move from its longtime headquarters in Mountain View to a new under-development project in Sunnyvale, California.

The company has created the world’s largest crowdsourced platform for genetic research, with 80 percent of its customers electing to participate. The 23andMe research platform has generated more than 180 publications on the genetic underpinnings of a wide range of diseases, conditions, and traits. The platform also powers the 23andMe Therapeutics group, currently pursuing drug discovery programs rooted in human genetics across a spectrum of disease areas, including oncology, respiratory, and cardiovascular diseases, in addition to other therapeutic areas.

23andMe was named by Glassdoor as one of The Best Places to Work. CEO, Anne Wojcicki was also named one of Glassdoor’s top CEOs in 2019 and one of Comparably’s "Best CEOs for Women" in 2021.

In other news, Anne Wojcicki also signed (some time ago) the Giving Pledge – a promise that 236 of the world’s super wealthy have made to donate at least half their fortune to charitable causes.

Other notables who have signed the pledge include Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, Paul G. Allen (now deceased in 2018), George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, Elon Musk, T. Boone Pickens (deceased in 2019), David Rockefeller (deceased in 2017), Jeff and Marieke Rothschild, Ted Turner, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.

In still other news, Anne Wojcicki is the sister of Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube. Anne Wojcicki also is the ex-wife of Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

Anne Wojcicki also has frequently expressed interest in “revolutionizing health care” with DNA testing, as it could provide consumers with enough information to predict potential genetic illnesses.

The following is a Plus Edition article, written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. 

Subtitle: Do as I say, not as I have done.

I well remember the day that I lost about 100 ancestors. It could happen to you.

In my case, early in my genealogy endeavors, I was adding information about “new” ancestors in great haste. Well, they weren't really new; they had always been my ancestors, but their names were new to me in those days. I'd find a new ancestor, record his or her information, then move on and find the parents. In the early days of my genealogy searches, it was easy to add new ancestors. After all, everyone has thousands of ancestors and, when you are new to the game, the records can be easy to find. This is especially true for French-Canadian genealogy as the Catholic Church did a great job in the 1800s of recording almost every christening and marriage and most funerals, usually including the name of the parents in each record. Those records are easy to find on microfilms and in printed books and, in recent years, in online databases.

As a genealogy newcomer, however, I didn't know about the need for double and triple-checking for accuracy.

One day I found a record for one of my French-Canadian great-great-grandfathers. There was but one problem: I had already documented him (or someone else) but with different dates of birth, marriage, and death, and with a different wife. I had no choice but to go back and double-check the original records I had previously transcribed.

I'll skip over the boring details and go directly to the bottom line: I had found and transcribed information about the wrong man! Who knew that two different men, living in the same small town in northern Maine at the same time, would have the same name? Yes, there were two different men named Joseph Theriault living in the same town.

The remainder of this article is reserved for Plus Edition subscribers only. If you have a Plus Edition subscription, you may read the full article at: https://eogn.com/(*)-Plus-Edition-News-Articles/12804859

If you are not yet a Plus Edition subscriber, you can learn more about such subscriptions and even upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription immediately at https://eogn.com/page-18077.

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG):

In the 19 May 2022 edition of this newsletter, I mentioned that Amazon is about to release it's new version of the 7-inch Fire tablet computer at a very low price: $60 (U.S.)

NOTE: I suspect that price is only for customers with shipping addresses in the U.S.

My original article mentioned that the Fire tablet was not available for ordering just yet at the date the article was published. That has since changed: the Fire tablet is now available for order with shipments expected on June 29.

You can read more, including a lot more details about the capabilities of the new tablet, in an article by Elaine Selna published in the Mental Floss web site at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/amazon-new-fire-7-tablet-pre-order.

A story by Jim Keithley and published in the WMTW-TV web site will make genealogists green with envy. "Why don't things like THAT happen to me?"

Quoting from the article:

"This is the box," said Valerie Guevara, historian for the American Legion Post 40 in Winthrop as she handed it over to Karen Breton.

"This is my grandmother and my great-grandmother on my dad's side," Breton said. "This means so much because my dad's not with us anymore," she said.

The two women met Thursday in a parking lot near the Maine Mall in South Portland, weeks after the Legion Post 40 received the old cigar box full photos. It was mailed to them from a man in California, another legion member, who saved the box from a junk pile during a renovation project two years ago. The box sat in his garage until he noticed an inscription that mentioned the American Legion Post 40 in Winthrop, ME.

It turns out Breton's brother, Russell Mundi, lived in Orange County, California. years ago. She said when her brother moved, he must have left behind the box of old family pictures. Mundi lives in Sebago now.

You can read the rest of the story at: https://www.wmtw.com/article/box-old-photos-found-returned-home-to-maine/40178871.

The following announcement was written by Find My Past:

With two brand new record sets and substantial additions to two other military collections, there's so much to uncover this Findmypast Friday.

British Army, Recommendations For Military Honours and Awards 1935-1990

This fascinating collection from The National Archives includes nearly 80,000 records. The transcripts include British Army personnel and some dominions armies' personnel. They also contain some recommendations for members of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines. Reasons for recommendations vary, including gallantry in the face of the enemy, 'meritorious service' (not in the face of the enemy), or distinguished service. Covering the years in the lead up to World War 2 and beyond, the records reveal soldiers’ names, units, ranks, home addresses, and often poignant descriptions of the actions that warrant an award.

South Africa, Local Armed Forces Nominal Rolls, 1899-1902

Another entirely new collection from The National Archives, this series comprises over 53,000 records detailing some of the British Army units raised locally in South Africa during the Second Boer War. These local units mainly consisted of British men who had emigrated to South Africa before the war. The record transcripts feature names, ranks, army units and in many cases, enrolment and discharge dates.

Britain, Campaign, Gallantry & Long Service Medals & Awards

Findmypast has added over 51,000 new records to this collection, which details those that showed strength and courage in the face of war.

Specifically, these latest additions cover recipients of:

• • Long Service Good Conduct Medal
  • India General Service Medal Pegu (Army) 1852-53
  • India General Service Medal Pegu (Navy) 1852-53

These records have been collated from multiple sources, including The National Archives and the British Library, but also from musters, pay lists, and other service records. As a result, each record varies in its information but usually includes a combination of regiment and rank, reason for award, any other known medals, discharge date and more.

British Royal Navy & Royal Marines Service and Pension Records, 1704-1919

Findmypast has added over 19,000 more records to this collection, including a shore list of men who joined the Royal Marines in 1810. The records reveal the rank and division of the seafaring servicemen, as well as the date they joined and any remarks made by their superior. 

Newspapers 

In case you missed our announcement, Findmypast has made their entire newspaper archive free until 6 June to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. Their latest releases are included in the free access promotion, including:

New titles: 

• • Eastleigh Weekly News and Hants Gazette, 1895-1900
  • St Neots Town Crier, 1994
  • Stockport Times, 1989

Updated titles: 

• • Abergele & Pensarn Visitor, 1990
  • Accrington Observer and Times, 1912, 1990
  • Alderley & Wilmslow Advertiser, 1946
  • Aldershot News, 1978-1979
  • Anfield & Walton Star, 1992
  • Ashby Mail, 1992
  • Bebington News, 1991
  • Billingham & Norton Advertiser, 1992
  • Birkenhead News, 1991
  • Birmingham Journal, 1839
  • Burton Daily Mail, 1997
  • Cambridge Town Crier, 1992
  • Cheltenham Chronicle, 1860
  • Crewe Chronicle, 1980, 1994-1995
  • Daily Record, 1988, 1994
  • Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, 1986
  • East Grinstead Observer, 1991
  • East Kilbride News, 1995
  • East Kilbride World, 1991, 1993
  • Galloway News and Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser, 1991
  • Gateshead Post, 1994
  • Glamorgan Gazette, 1984
  • Heartland Evening News, 1998
  • Herald Cymraeg, 1952
  • Herald of Wales, 1950
  • Hertford Mercury and Reformer, 1981
  • Herts and Essex Observer, 1980
  • Hinckley Times, 1993, 1998
  • Hoddesdon and Broxbourne Mercury, 1993-1994, 1998
  • Horley & Gatwick Mirror, 1992
  • Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 1993, 1995
  • Huntingdon Town Crier, 1987, 1989, 1996
  • Ilfracombe Chronicle, 1891-1892
  • Ilkeston Express, 1989, 1992
  • Kensington News and West London Times, 1937, 1951, 1964, 1968,
  • Long Eaton Advertiser, 1988, 1994
  • Loughborough Echo, 1912
  • Loughborough Mail, 1990, 1994
  • Macclesfield Express, 1989, 1998
  • Maghull & Aintree Star, 1991
  • Merthyr Express, 1990
  • Middlesex County Times, 1995, 1998
  • Midweek Visiter (Southport), 1995
  • Nantwich Chronicle, 1993-1994
  • Northampton Herald & Post, 1991
  • Nottingham Evening Post, 1994
  • Nottingham Guardian, 1872
  • Nottingham Recorder, 1996
  • Oldham Advertiser, 1992
  • Ormskirk Advertiser, 1876, 1894
  • Perthshire Advertiser, 1919
  • Peterborough Standard, 1986
  • Port Talbot Guardian, 1981-1982, 1984-1985, 1995
  • Rhondda Leader, 1987
  • Ripley Express, 1992
  • Rossendale Free Press, 1987
  • Rugeley Mercury, 1988, 1990, 1992
  • Runcorn & Widnes Herald & Post, 1989-1990, 1993
  • Sevenoaks Focus, 1992
  • Solihull News, 1994-1997
  • Solihull Times, 1994-1996, 1998
  • Somerset Standard, 1980
  • Southall Gazette, 1979, 1995, 1998
  • Southport Visiter, 1989
  • Stafford Post, 1989, 1991
  • Staines Informer, 1988, 1990
  • Stanmore Observer, 1987-1988, 1990
  • Stirling Observer, 1989
  • Stockport Advertiser and Guardian, 1877
  • Stockport Express Advertiser, 1992
  • Stockton & Billingham Herald & Post, 1989
  • Tamworth Herald, 1989, 1997
  • Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 1884
  • The People, 1998
  • Uttoxeter New Era, 1887
  • Wellingborough & Rushden Herald & Post, 1989, 1992
  • West Surrey Times, 1873, 1912
  • Western Evening Herald, 1993
  • Westminster & Pimlico News, 1998
  • Winsford Chronicle, 1996-1997