The following announcement was written by the Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists (ASG):

The Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists are pleased to offer four more grant opportunities in support of important continuing genealogical research projects. These grants are intended to assist with those projects sitting unfinished (or unstarted) on every genealogist’s “back burner” for lack of financial aid to help cover researching and writing time, costs of copies, fees, travel, and other usual expenses associated with genealogical research and publication.

Each grant is for $2,500. Projects are not limited regarding subject, length, or format, but the value of the work to other researchers and institutions will be an important consideration. Examples of possible projects include, but are not limited to, compilation of single or extended family genealogies, transcriptions or translations of original documents, bibliographies, indexes, studies of ethnic groups, geographic locations, migration patterns, legal history, etc., using genealogical resources and methods. Publication is not required, but acknowledgement of the support from the American Society of Genealogists in any distribution of the project results is requisite. Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists are not eligible for these grants.

For further information about the grants and application forms, e-mail: acwcrane@aol.com, or write to:

ASG Continuing Grants
c/o Alicia Crane Williams, FASG 4 White Trellis
Plymouth MA 02360

Submission deadline: All applications for the 2023 grants must be received by March 1, 2023.

NOTE: This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I believe that all computer users and owners should be aware of the privacy concerns and the solutions that are available.

Proton appears to be the leading privacy-focused application (Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Drive, and Proton Calendar) available today. Best of all, these applications are available free of charge, although payment is requested for enhanced versions offering additional features.

You can learn more at: https://proton.me/.

According to a new announcement from Proton, the following additions have just been made to Proton Calendar:

Proton Calendar, which claims to be the "world's only" calendar using end-to-end encryption and cryptographic verification, has arrived on iOS, giving those seeking a more secure work suite an alternative to Google, Apple, and the like.

Proton Calendar is pitched as offering encryption for all event details, as well as "high-performance elliptic curve cryptography (ECC Curve25519)" to lock it. The web app version of Proton Calendar is open source, with the code for mobile apps to come next, Proton says. Proton also notes that it never finds out who you've invited to an event, and it allows for inviting people outside the Proton ecosystem, letting people "cryptographically verify that it was you who invited them."

Andy Yen, CEO of Proton, said in an interview with Wired in May that calendars are an "extremely sensitive" record of your life and that protecting them is essential. Encryption protects your calendar data from government requests, data leaks, or "a change in business model of your cloud provider."

For its part, Google, the 800-pound gorilla of calendar data syncing, says that Google Calendar data is "encrypted in-transit and at-rest," using "strong industry standards and practices." But Google has your name, email address, and phone number, and Calendar "uses data to improve your experience" and saves "some location info," search queries, and other activity. Apple's iCloud security/privacy policy is broader and not as readily broken down into individual apps, but it's similar regarding encryption. (A summary-friendly policy for personal Outlook accounts was not something the author could provide at this time.)

Proton, then, is offering a far more simple pitch: your data is always encrypted, and it's not being used to connect other (often ad-driven) services or, as is often the case, round out a heap of user data.

Getting a calendar app onto iOS is part of Proton's broader push to position its suite of services—email, calendar, file storage, and VPN—as a security and privacy-minded alternative to the free (or freemium) ecosystems run by the biggest tech firms. You pay for all but the most basic services, and you get services focused on protecting your work and communications. Proton's services are not nearly as feature-packed as the more established suites from Google, Apple, or enterprise firms, but they are under active development.

Proton touts its servers and user data as being protected by "Swiss data privacy laws," which somewhat came back on the company last year. Proton (then known as ProtonMail) had said that it did not, by default, "keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account." After a Swiss court injunction, Proton was forced to keep IP logs on an account under investigation, removed the logging language from its policy, and pointed to Tor as a way to better anonymize Proton access.

A woman says she received a message from an unknown number urging her to conduct a DNA test in order to find the truth about her parentage in a now-viral TikTok storytime.

In the video posted by TikToker Lane (@laneiscool14) on Dec. 1, she points to a screenshot of a text message she received from an unknown number, saying, “This text message right here changed my life forever.”

“About a year ago now, on Jan. 9, I get a text message telling me to get a DNA test And I think it’s fake, I FaceTime my friend, and I’m like, ‘Listen to this.’ And she’s like, ‘I swear my gut is telling me this is real. You need to respond.’ So I respond, and then they write me back,” Lane continues.

Lane shows another part of the text conversation, saying, “I was shook that they responded, and I let them know I had already done 23andMe the year before because it was on sale. I was hoping I was gonna find that I was like secretly exotic or related to royalty, but I’m just English and Irish like I thought I was.”

“They would not provide me with any sort of proof that this was real, and, obviously, I called my mom immediately.

As it turns out, the message she received wasn’t someone just messing with her, and Lane’s mom revealed that she had an “affair” while she was in college.

“I find out that, yes, this man is my father."

There are many more details in an article by Jack Alban published in the Daily Dot web site at: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/ancestry-dna-results-mystery-text/.

Now that we have easy and open access to DNA testing, family mysteries are often mysteries no more. But for people across the globe, family trees remain an often murky subject.

It’s part of why celebrity genealogy shows are so gripping — don’t we all wish we could have a team of researchers and DNA experts at our disposal?

Since 2012, the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., has illuminated the family trees of public figures including actors, artists, musicians, journalists, filmmakers and activists. Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher university professor at Harvard University, is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard. With the scholar at the helm, the show has shed light on the family histories of New Jersey celebrities including Queen Latifah, Nathan Lane and Paul Rudd.

Next, to celebrate the show’s 10th season on the air, “Finding Your Roots” producers are looking for regular people — yes, all you non-celebrities out there — to feature on the show. This will be the first time the series opens its resources up to fans and viewers who aren’t normally in the limelight.

Anyone interested in being featured on the show is asked to send in their family mysteries.

You can read more in an article by Amy Kuperinsky published in the NJ.com web site at: https://tinyurl.com/3t98mt59.

The State Historical Society of North Dakota says it has added more than 50,000 additional newspapers to its digital archives. The papers date as far back as 1883 and run through the 1930s.

The project was done in partnership with the North Dakota Genealogy Society. To date, more than 1.4 million pages of historical newspapers have been archived by the state, and are free and available for the public to view.

“Whether an individual is doing family history or working on a school paper, the newspapers are a great primary source and full of information not found elsewhere,” said State Archives Director Shane Molander.

You can view the archives online at ndarchives.advantage-preservation.com.

Are you fed up with search engines that search your searches to determine and save whatever it is you are searching for. For search engines that also offer email services (such as Google/Gmail), are you also fed up with those companies reading your email to collect all sorts of personal information about you, and selling that information to anyone who will pay for it? (Such as various political parties, foreign governments, hackers, merchants, and more?)

If so, let me introduce you to Qwant.

Yes, stop using Google or Bing or other shady search engines. Start using Qwant.com in their place.

An Alternative Made in France That Implements European Legislation

Qwant advertises:

Qwant Search: The search engine that doesn't know anything about you, and that changes everything: zero tracing of your searches, zero personal data use, zero targeted advertising.

At Qwant, we don’t know who you are. We don’t target you with ads or keep your search history. Because your age, gender, and interests belong only to you. And so with each new search request, you get a blank page to begin anew.

Being informed should not turn you into a Click Machine. Turning our users into click machines goes against our ethics. That's why, at Qwant, we don't track advertising or analyze your personal data. Qwant puts aside the algorithms that pre-format the web and turn you into a commodity.

By not tracking our users, our search engine offers you a completely unfiltered overview of the Internet and guarantees neutral results. Your search results are never locked into certainties. Thus, your previous searches don’t influence the results of your next ones.

Qwant does not place any advertising cookies in your browser. Therefore, any advertisements that appear during your browsing will be linked to your search keywords, and not to your user profile.

Nowadays it is common to refer to data as, “black gold”. Not at Qwant. We don’t sell your data to third-party organizations, for advertising or for any other purposes.

Qwant Maps: The map service that finds the right addresses and guides you around without tracking you. (I am not sure how often the maps are updated. For instance, it doesn't show the street where I live. Admittedly, I live in a housing development that was only created about 3 years ago and new streets are still being established today.)

Qwant Junior: The only secure search engine designed for children's learning and their parents' peace of mind.

Qwant is always available thanks to the Qwant mobile app (mobile apps are available on Google Play and on the Apple App Store).

Qwant is based in France. In order to respect the French and European legislative frameworks, Qwant thoroughly incorporates the RGPD. We respect all fundamental rights, including the right to be forgotten, which gives you the possibility to have your data deleted.

All in all, Qwant looks like a winner! I am using Qwant nowadays and, so far, I am very happy with it.

I suggest you try it out for yourself. You can do so by going to: https://www.qwant.com

UPDATEDHouston, Muscogee, and Talbot Counties, Georgia, U.S., Marriages, 1826-1852	12/6/2022
UPDATEDCamden County, New Jersey, U.S., Marriages, 1837-1910	12/6/2022
UPDATEDMississippi, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1826-1900	12/6/2022
UPDATEDMaine, U.S., Compiled Marriages for Belfast, Hallowell and Pittsdon, 1748-1875	12/6/2022
UPDATEDGeorgia, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1851-1900	12/6/2022
UPDATEDVirginia, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1851-1900	12/6/2022
UPDATEDMissouri, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1851-1900	12/6/2022
UPDATEDColorado, U.S., Compiled Marriages from Mesa, Arapahoe and Boulder Counties, 1859-1900	12/6/2022
UPDATEDMaryland, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1667-1899	12/6/2022
NEWAlaska, U.S., Pribilof Islands Vital Records and Census Records, 1877-1970	12/5/2022
NEWAlaska, U.S., Jail Book of St Michael Island, 1899-1905	12/5/2022
NEWAlaska, U.S., Masters and Owners of Vessels Oaths, 1893-1997	12/5/2022
NEWAlaska, U.S., Deed and Tract Books, 1906-1975	12/5/2022

This is a quick reminder for anyone with Irish ancestry: make sure you know about and occasionally check irishgenealogy.ie.

This web site has links pointing to all sorts of Irish genealogy resources. For instance, here is a list from the site's home page:

• What are the Civil Records
• What Civil Records are on-line
• What information is on the Indexes that are on-line
• I want to get a copy of a certificate, what do I do
• Can you explain the location to me
• Notice concerning possible redaction of Historic Birth Records
• Notice concerning possible redaction of Historic images of marriages over 75 years old
• Notice concerning cancelled records
• What years are covered by the Historic records of Births, Marriages and Deaths
• Frequently Asked Questions

The web site may be found at: irishgenealogy.ie.

Here is a list of all of this week's articles, all of them available here at https://eogn.com:

(+) Store Your Files Online at No or Low Cost

Is It Unverified Data and Will It Always be Unverified?

1960 Census: NARA’s Already Working Toward 2032

National Archives Begins Work on 1960 Census Records Release

Estonia is Establishing a Database Of World War II Refugees

Full Siblings Placed for Adoption Find Each Other Thanks to MyHeritage DNA

Synium Software GmbH’s MacFamilyTree 10 named an App Store Award Winner by Apple

Inside the Diet That Fueled Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers

1921 Scotland Census Records are Now Released and Are Available Online

Canadian Estate Files During World War I

Holocaust Survivors Offered Free DNA Tests to Help Find Family

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy Announced for London, July 30 - Aug. 3, 2023; Call for Proposals Now Open

Ohio Genealogical Society Call for Lecture Proposals for 2024 Annual Conference

Hoopar Brothers Gravestone in Edison, New Jersey

National Museum of African American History and Culture Examines the Impact of Race

It's an 'Exciting Time' for DNA Genealogy in Solving Cold Cases, Experts Say. But Some Urge Caution

The Mary Eliza Project: Boston's Ward 11 Voter Records Are Now Available

Findmypast Releases New Norfolk Records This Week

Sperm Counts Worldwide Are Plummeting Faster Than Previously Believed

Always Wanted to Own a Giant Cruise Ship? Here’s Your Chance

The following announcement was written by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC):

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) hosted the inaugural National Conversation on Race: Reckoning with Our Racial Past this month, the first in a series of conversations across the U.S. that will bring together diverse groups of individuals to discuss race and racism in historical, cultural and contemporary contexts. The panel discussion explored how events during the past two years have affected and shaped the ongoing legacy of race and racism in the U.S. The program, part of Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past initiative, included remarks from Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III and a musical performance by composer and producer Nolan Williams Jr.

The museum will hold its annual Freedom’s Eve program, providing a look into how enslaved African Americans celebrated New Year’s Eve in the past and how the African American community uses food to help bring good fortune into the new year. The two-part program will include curated in-person activities to help plan goals for the new year and conclude with a virtual concert featuring piano prodigy Matthew Whitaker.

This year, beginning Dec. 26, the public can view a new video on Kwanzaa’s history and how to celebrate featuring museum specialist and oral historian Kelly Navies. The public can view the video and learn more about this seven-day celebration of African American culture on the museum’s Kwanzaa webpage. Users can find enlightening videos, unique family activities to do at home and special holiday recipes rooted in Black culinary traditions. 

December highlights also include the continuation of the museum’s Dine and Shop Pass option. NMAAHC offers a two-per-day limit of passes to access both the museum store and Sweet Home Café between 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. during regular operating hours. Visitors can enjoy a fusion of rich African American culture paired with present-day food traditions like southern buttermilk fried chicken, savory collard greens and mouthwatering macaroni and cheese at Sweet Home Café. Afterward, visitors can stop by the museum store to purchase the perfect holiday gift. Passes must be reserved 48 hours in advance at 8 a.m. ET on a rolling basis. 

A full list of all the December In-Person and Virtual Programs may be found at: https://tinyurl.com/4yf6cvdh.