The Georgia Historical Society's Research Center has now reopened not only to the 60,000 historians, scholars, documentarians, researchers, students and journalists who visit annually, but also — and perhaps more so — to the many Savannahians who may not be as aware of the treasures preserved there.

This graceful space first was dedicated as the repository of Georgia's pre-colonial and revolutionary history in 1876, a time when Savannah, not Atlanta, was the state's most culturally and economically relevant city. The property was a gift by Mary Telfair and her sister Margaret Telfair Hodgson to memorialize her late husband William B. Hodgson, a scholar of Middle Eastern studies and an American diplomat, who had died five years earlier.

The $5 million restoration of historic Hodgson Hall and the expansion of the 1970s-era Abrahams Annex are the most visible results of a 10-year, $23 million capital campaign that launched in 2008 after years of GHS staff growing concerned about space to viably store the blossoming collection, which had been passively growing for decades.

You can read more in an article by Amy Paige Condon, published in the Savannah Morning News' web site, at: https://bit.ly/3tkfz9z.

The following announcement was written by MyHeritage:

We’re pleased to tell you about a very special limited-time offer we’re launching this week: from March 1, 2022, until March 8, 2022, you can upload your DNA data to MyHeritage and get access to all advanced DNA features, including the Ethnicity Estimate, absolutely free — forever!

Last year, we celebrated RootsTech with a similar offer. That offer that led Kara Miller to find her biological family, and eventually have both her birth father and her adoptive father walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Stories like Kara’s are why we do what we do here at MyHeritage, and we want to make many more of them possible!

MyHeritage always allows you to upload your DNA data from other providers and get DNA Matches for free. We’re aware that people who are searching for family members — such as adopted people searching for their birth parents — want to “fish in multiple ponds” and try multiple DNA databases to find leads, and purchasing multiple DNA kits gets expensive. That’s why we never charge users for uploading their DNA, viewing their list of DNA Matches, and contacting their DNA Matches. However, a one-time unlock fee of $29 (or a site subscription on MyHeritage) is usually required to access the advanced DNA features.

During this week, we are waiving the unlock fee. You can now upload your DNA data to MyHeritage and get access to your Ethnicity Estimate, Genetic Groups, and other advanced DNA tools such as the Chromosome Browser, AutoClusters, and Theory of Family Relativity™ — absolutely free! These features will remain free forever for the DNA kits you upload to MyHeritage during this week.

Upload your data to MyHeritage now

MyHeritage is the only DNA company to commit never to sell or license user data to third parties — so you can rest assured that your data is safe with us.

Why upload to MyHeritage?

• • Huge global user base of more than 5.6 million people
  • The best service worldwide for European DNA matches
  • Ethnicity reports from across 2,114 geographic regions — more than any other DNA company
  • Advanced and innovative DNA tools including Chromosome Browser, AutoClusters, Theory of Family Relativity™ and much more
  • DNA data uploaded to MyHeritage is completely private. Only you can see the DNA data you upload
  • MyHeritage is the only DNA company to date that has committed never to sell or license users’ data to third parties — your data is safe and secure

What the limited-time offer includes

If you take advantage of this offer and upload your raw DNA data this week, in addition to the basic DNA features such as receiving, exporting, and contacting DNA Matches, using labels for DNA Matches, and viewing shared ancestral surnames, you’ll be able to access the following features absolutely free — not just this week but also in the future:

• • Ethnicity Estimate & Genetic Groups
  • Chromosome Browser
  • View family trees and pedigree charts of your DNA Matches
  • Shared DNA Matches
  • Shared ethnicities
  • Shared ancestral places
  • AutoClusters
  • Theory of Family Relativity™

How to upload your DNA data

Watch the following short video to learn how to upload your DNA data to MyHeritage:

We support DNA files from Ancestry, Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder, 23andMe (all versions, including v5).

So what are you waiting for? Upload your DNA data to MyHeritage now, while all the DNA features are free.

Enjoy!

If there is no doctor in the house, Amazon’s Alexa will soon be able to summon one.

Amazon and telemedicine provider Teladoc Health are starting a voice-activated virtual care program that lets customers get medical help without picking up their phones.

The service, for health issues that aren’t emergencies, will be available around the clock on Amazon’s Echo devices. Customers can tell the voice assistant Alexa that they want to talk to a doctor, and that will prompt a call back on the device from a Teladoc physician.

The program, announced Monday, marks Amazon’s latest expansion into health care and another push by the retail giant into a form of care that grew rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amazon already dispenses prescription drugs and is expanding an Amazon Care program it launched in 2019 that offers telemedicine visits with an option to send a care provider to the patient if they need an in-person visit.

Like millions of Americans, David Berry was curious about his genealogy. He wanted to learn more about his paternal grandfather, whose ancestry was British. But as he explored his father’s side of the family, he discovered something wholly unexpected: The man he thought was his father was not related to him at all.

His DNA test results offered two additional surprises: Mr. Berry, 37, was more than 50 percent Jewish, and he had a cousin or a half-sibling who was unknown to him.

So Mr. Berry began searching for his biological father. His parents revealed that their doctor had found them an anonymous sperm donor. Could he find him?

Over the next three years, Mr. Berry learned that he had at least 10 half brothers and sisters through the same donor.

Last May, he finally discovered his biological father’s identity. The man was not an anonymous sperm donor after all, but was Dr. Morris Wortman, the fertility doctor in Rochester that his mother had seen. Dr. Wortman, who still practices there, had impregnated her with his own sperm without telling her.

Over the past several years, more than 50 fertility doctors in the United States have been accused of fraud in connection with donating sperm, according to legal experts and observers.

You can read much more about this story by Jacqueline Mroz published in the New York Times at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/health/fertility-doctors-fraud-rochester.html.

This is a major event in the genealogy world: the world's largest genealogy conference starts on Thursday this week. That's March 3. It goes through Saturday, March 5.

This huge conference is held entirely online and, best of all, it is free.

More than one million people from over 100 countries are expected to attend this, the world's largest online celebration of family, culture, and heritage. They will choose from more than 1,500 sessions, most of them conducted by some of the leading genealogy experts of our time.

It is not too late to register. (Again, it is FREE!) You can register now at https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/.

During the apex of the civil rights movement, much of the mainstream news coverage excluded the views of Black people in its reporting. So the narrative in print largely did not include how they felt about the protests, the racism they experienced in the United States or how it affected their lives.

Except in the Black media.

Black newspapers provided in-depth coverage that balanced out what the white-dominated media omitted.

Now, with the help of a $2 million grant announced Monday, Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center will make available countless articles that captured in real-time the impact of historical events on Black people that have long been difficult, if not impossible, to access. By digitizing its extensive Black Press Archives, anyone will be able to access Howard’s collection of more than 2,000 newspapers from the United States, Africa and the African diaspora online.

Details may be found at: https://bit.ly/3vGnq4b.

With more than 3,600 individual genome sequences that date back more than 100,000 years, scientists have unveiled the largest human family tree ever created, providing an unprecedented glimpse into the deep past and complex present of our species.

The immense family tree was stitched together from existing datasets and contains modern genetic information from around the world as well as samples from extinct human relatives such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. Scientists led by Anthony Wilder Wohns, who conducted the research while earning a PhD at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute, were able to confirm major events in human history from this integrated framework, such our species’ migration out of Africa, while also encountering surprises about past populations that will require more research to understand.

The outcome is a “unified genealogy of modern and ancient humans” that demonstrates the power of computational methods “to recover relationships between individuals and populations as well as to identify descendants of ancient samples,” according to a study published on Thursday in Science.

“Although much work is still required to build the genealogy of everyone, the methods presented here provide a solution to this fundamental task,” the researchers concluded in the study.

You can read more in an article by Becky Ferreira published in the Vice.com web site at: https://bit.ly/3BTa6u2 and in a different article by Ben Cost available in the New York Post at: https://nypost.com/2022/02/25/world-record-family-tree-links-27-million-people/.

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

If your genealogy society is thinking of creating a web site or improving an existing web site, one discussion is sure to arise sooner or later: how much information should the society place on the web site?

Should the ENTIRE society newsletter be published online? Or should the newsletter be held back as a "benefit of membership" and only made available to paid members?

How about records that the society has transcribed? Should the society publish old tax lists or census extracts or cemetery transcriptions online? Such lists probably were printed in booklets in the past and were sold for a modest amount of money, generating a bit of income for the society. Should the society now give the information away free of charge in electronic format?

In fact, the same question arises when individuals decide to place the results of their hard work online, such as extracts of various records.

I don't have all the answers, but I can offer a few observations.

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/12625981.

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 book reviews were written by Bobbi King:

“Runaways” Volumes Continue Publication by the Genealogical Publishing Company

Joseph Lee Boyle, the prodigious researcher, compiler, and author, continues to output his extractions of historic advertisements placed into colonial newspapers by the owners of runaway servants, apprentices, military deserters, lawbreakers, errant spouses, and miscellaneous categories of persons on the run.

Each book has an introductory section offering details describing the newspapers searched, the information recovered, the indexing of all the names, the compiler’s efforts to transcribe the ads exactly as read, and examples of particularly notable persons and ads.

Each book has an index, including the several names used for one individual in a notice.

Some examples:

RAN away from Capt. James Oliver of Boston, a Negro Man named Cambridge, about 27 Years old and Pockbroken, that has been used to work at the Baker’s Trade. He had on a new double breasted light coloured Cloth Jacket, with flat Metal Buttons, lined with blue Bays, and a great Coat and breeches of the same Cloth, or else a pair of blue Cloth Breeches, and a Seal-skin Cap. Whoever takes him up, and brings him to his abovesaid Master, shall have 40s. Reward, old Tenor, and all necessary Charges. And all Masters of Vessels are forbid carrying him off at their Peril.

The Boston Evening-Post, January 9, 1744. See The Boston Evening-Post, June 9, 1740. See The Boston Evening-Post, October 17, 1743.

WHEREAS Jane Williams the Wife of Jonathan Williams of said Beverly, hath run him in Debt, and squander’d away a considerable Part of his Estate; THIS is to caution all Persons whatsoever against trading with her, and to inform them, that her said husband will not pay any Debt she shall contract after this Date, as witness my Hand,

Jonathan Williams.

The Boston Weekly Post-Boy, January 9, 1744; January 16, 1744.

RAN away from the Ship Providence, John Parr Master, on the 9th of December, 1743, John Scudder, who if he will return to his Duty on board the said Ship in five Days from the Date hereof, he shall be kindly received, but if not, he shall be deemed a Deserter, and treated accordingly.

The Boston Evening-Post, December 26, 1743; January 2, 1744.

“Stiles himself a Prize fighter” New-York Runaways, 1706–1768

The majority of persons cited in this series are runaway servants, slaves, and lawbreakers, both men and women. Thirty newspapers were consulted.

“Fond of liquor, dancing and gaming” New-York Runaways, 1769–1783

Sixty-two newspapers were consulted.

“smooth tongued and deceitful” White New Jersey Runaways 1767–1783

The majority of persons cited here are white men and women runaways. Blacks whose names were in the ads are noted and included in the index. Forty-one newspapers were consulted.

“much given to Talk and bad Company” New-England Runaways, 1704–1754

Smallpox outbreaks regularly occurred during this time, and runaways wanted to avoid inoculation. Twenty-five newspapers were consulted.

“He is a person of very ill fame” New-England Runaways, 1755–1768

Twenty-five newspapers were consulted.

“can tell an ample story” New-England Runaways, 1769–1773

Twenty-five newspapers were consulted.

“Runaways” Volumes are available from Genealogical Publishing Company at https://genealogical.com/store/.