Boston-based philanthropists are coming together to help get banned books in the hands of Florida residents, where efforts to ban books has surged.

Tech entrepreneur Paul English, who co-founded Kayak, and Joyce Linehan, former chief of policy for the City of Boston and member of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, have founded BannedBooksUSA.org, an online platform that allows Florida residents to order banned and restricted books for just the price of shipping.

English said he hopes the initiative helps get the books in the hands of readers, but also prompts communities to fight harder against banning books.

“If you look at the authors behind the books that are banned, they're largely BIPOC, Black, gay, Indigenous,” he said. “They're people that have been marginalized with more attempts to marginalize them. And so what the bans are doing is they're not letting these marginalized people tell their story. They're instead trying to tell a very different story about American history and our society”

English and Linehan created the platform, launched Wednesday, in reaction to the book bans taking place in Florida, where more than 40% of book bans nationwide in 2022 have occurred in the state's school districts, according to a PEN America study. Last year, school districts in the state removed approximately 300 books from library shelves after more than 1,200 objections raised by parents, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Any Florida resident who wants a book can go on the website, choose one title to order and pay $3.99 to have it shipped. Florida residents, libraries and educational institutions can order a book — or someone out of state can send a book to someone they know, with the receiver having to approve the shipment. A Florida delivery address is required for the sale to process. 

The cost of the books will be covered by a $100,000 investment by English and any additional funding raised.

You can read more in an article by Haley Lerner published in the wgbh.org web site at: https://www.wgbh.org/culture/2023-10-11/local-activists-band-together-to-fight-banned-books. 

Don't look now, but today is Friday, the 13th of the month. That is an especially bad day for people who suffer from a phobia famously called triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. Any Friday that falls on the 13th of the month is especially bad, causing the fear of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words Paraskeví (meaning “Friday”), and dekatreís (meaning “thirteen”).

In the Christian world the number 13 has long been associated with many bad events. Jesus had 12 disciples, which meant there were a total of 13 people in attendance the evening of the Last Supper, with Judas being received as the 13th guest.

On Friday 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered Knights Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The Knights Templar were charged with numerous other offenses, such as financial corruption, fraud, secrecy, denying Christ, spitting on the crucifix, idol worship, blasphemy, and various obscenities. The soldiers arrested and imprisoned all the Knights Templar they could find. Most of those imprisoned were tortured until they died. Many in France were burned at the stake, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Only a few Knights Templar survived, mostly those who were in distant countries at the time, and they went into hiding.

The German Luftwaffe bombed Buckingham Palace on Friday, the 13th of September, 1940.

Hip hop star Tupac Shakur died on Friday, September 13, 1996, of gunshot wounds suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship crashed off the coast of Italy, killing 30 people, on Friday, the 13th of January 2012.

In 1907, Thomas W. Lawson published a novel called Friday, the Thirteenth, with the story of an unscrupulous broker taking advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th. The novel became a best seller of the time.

Many skyscrapers still don’t have buttons for the 13th floor of a building, as though calling the 13th floor the 14th floor is a critical measure toward keeping everybody safe.

Then, of course, we have the hockey mask-wearing killer named Jason in the movie Friday the 13th, released in 1980.

How many Friday the 13ths have you survived? A calculator embedded in an article by Philip Bump in The Washington Post gives the answer. You can check it out at: https://wapo.st/2GE9u1Y.

In spite of these misfortunes, there is no truth to the idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky. Still, I am not taking any chances. You won’t see me this Friday as I am taking the day off and staying in bed.

From an article by  Sefenech Henok published in the abc6onyourside web site:

Close to a million people have had their DNA and personal information leaked through the popular DNA Biotech company, '23 and me'.

Gahanna resident, Alexandra Lee Klawitter and her father are two of the almost 1 million victims, many of whom she says are Jewish.

“I was shocked," Klawitter told ABC 6. "My family is scared. People I have seen on TikTok and Facebook are scared. I think it has something to do with what’s going on in Israel. Everything political has been heightened and we've been seeing an alarming rate of antisemitism and nazis in the news lately and all over the internet."

Klawitter says she first heard of the hack, not from the company, but from a post made on TikTok.

After searching online, she came across a document created by the hackers. A spreadsheet was posted online with thousands of names of people including herself, her father and a number of other people - including from here in Franklin County.

“I didn't get any notification from the company," she said. "That’s when I started looking it up and was able to found, the document. I was led to believe my information was safe and had I known originally that doing this would have me dox online for being Jewish, I would of not done it."

Klawitter says she immediately messaged the company on Facebook last week. They opened her message, but did not respond. She finally received a generic notification of the hack to her email, yesterday.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/mwttw9xw.

The following is a press release written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists®:

“Steamer Kate Explosion: Correlating Indirect Evidence to Identify and Correct an Error” 

by C. Ann Staley, CG, CGL

Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

What happens when the indirect evidence of a death occurring and a probate record do not agree? The research begins in earnest! That is what happened in the case of the death of Antoine/Anthony Lallament of Mobile, Alabama. Who is Antoine and what relationship is he to me? When did he actually die? Which record is correct? What would other available records reveal? How is the explosion of the Steamer Kate involved? We have more questions than answers. This case study provides the research methodology involved in solving this problem.

C. Ann Staley, CG, CGL, is an educator, consultant, and co-leader of Ann-Mar Genealogy Trips. She is on the faculty of the National Institute for Genealogical Studies; the Education Chair of the Jacksonville Genealogical Society, Inc.; Vice President of the Genealogical Speakers Guild; and Trustee of the Florida State Genealogical Society. Ann has authored several articles for the NGS Magazine and is the co-author of Research in Florida of the NGS Research in the States series. Her specialties are methodology, research sources, computer resources, vital records and their sources, and conference planning.

BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “Steamer Kate Explosion: Correlating Indirect Evidence to Identify and Correct an Error” by C. Ann Staley, CG, CGL. This webinar airs Tuesday, October 17, 2023, at 8:00 p.m. EDT.  

When you register before October 17 with our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars(http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=8111) you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Anyone with schedule conflicts may access the webinar at no charge for one week after the broadcast on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website.

“We appreciate the opportunity to present these high-quality educational webinars,” said President Faye Jenkins Stallings, CG. “At BCG, our purpose is to promote public confidence in genealogy by supporting uniform standards of competence. These webinars help to achieve that by providing educational opportunities to family historians of all levels of experience.”

Following the free period for this webinar, BCG receives a small commission if you view this or any BCG webinar by clicking our affiliate link: http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=2619.

To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2023, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard at https://bcgcertification.org/bcg-2023-free-webinars/.  For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (https://bcgcertification.org/learning).

A Northern Ontario man was convicted this week of murdering two women 40 years ago, after police tracked him down with a new investigative technique that uses crime-scene DNA to close in on suspects by mapping their family trees.

The man, 62-year-old Joseph Sutherland of Moosonee, Ontario, confessed after investigators demanded a sample of his blood for genetic testing, newly released court documents show.

Mr. Sutherland pleaded guilty on Thursday to the 1983 sexual assaults and killings of the two Toronto women, Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour. He was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and will serve a life sentence, with no possibility of parole for 10 years.

Police arrived on Mr. Sutherland’s doorstep this past November after decades of stalled progress in their investigation of the deaths. They had used a technique known as investigative genetic genealogy to determine that DNA evidence left at the crime scenes by the killer had to belong either to Mr. Sutherland or one of his brothers.

Ms. Tice, a 45-year-old mother of four, had only recently moved to Toronto when she died. She was attacked inside her home on Aug. 16, 1983. Mr. Sutherland stabbed her 13 times, according to an agreed statement of facts filed with the Ontario Superior Court.

About four months later, the 22-year-old Ms. Gilmour, whose father was Barrick Gold co-founder David Gilmour, was alone in her second-floor Toronto apartment when Mr. Sutherland broke in, bound her hands and mouth and stabbed her twice in the chest, the statement says.

His biological material was recovered from Ms. Tice and Ms. Gilmour’s bodies, but police had no way of using it to determine his identity until recently.

By the early 2000s, police had access to some DNA analytical techniques. But an analysis at that time revealed only that the two women had been killed by the same man.

The investigation stalled until police gained access to genetic genealogy. The technique involves searching databases of genetic information controlled by private corporations. These businesses build their databases by encouraging individual customers of consumer genetic testing companies, such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe, to hand over their genealogical profiles for potential use in law enforcement searches.

By comparing crime-scene DNA to the genetic profiles in these databases, authorities can find people who may be relatives of the criminals they are seeking. This can help them make powerful deductions about the identities of suspects, even in cases from long ago.

In Mr. Sutherland’s case, the agreed statement of facts notes that Toronto Police started using genetic genealogy in 2021, and turned up five brothers whom they identified as potential suspects.

“A police investigation resulted in the elimination of four out of the five Sutherland brothers as the source of the crime scene DNA,” the agreed statement says. (It does not detail how the technology picked up on the Sutherland family, nor how police concluded Joseph was the guilty brother.)

Although critics fear genetic genealogy may erode privacy, police are embracing the technique as an investigative tool.

You can read more in an article by Colin Freeze published in The Globe and Mail web site at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-guilty-plea-in-two-40-year-old-murders-hinged-on-genetic-genealogy/. 

The new “Friends of Folkways” program allows listeners full access to the online catalog, beginning at $5 a month.

Smithsonian Folkways has launched a new program, dubbed “Friends of Folkways,” whereby fans can choose to donate to the nonprofit label in monthly increments as low as $5. In return, donors will have unlimited access to its full digital catalog—an archive of more than 60,000 recordings that includes Folkways titles, as well as those released on Arhoolie, Paredon, and others. According to a press release, the money raised from the program will be used to support the label and pay out artist royalties. Find more information here.

Moses Asch and Marian Distler founded Folkways in 1948, and the Smithsonian absorbed it in 1987 after Asch’s death. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the original label, which the institution has so far celebrated with reissues and new merchandise. Among these efforts is Matmos’ Return to Archive, arriving in November, which the duo made from Smithsonian Folkways’ non-musical collections of sounds from the animal world, the office, and everyday life.

Genetic profiling service 23andMe has commenced an investigation after private user data was scraped off its website

Friday’s confirmation comes five days after an unknown entity took to an online crime forum to advertise the sale of private information for millions of 23andMe users. The forum posts claimed that the stolen data included origin estimation, phenotype, health information, photos, and identification data. The posts claimed that 23andMe’s CEO was aware the company had been “hacked” two months earlier and never revealed the incident. In a statement emailed after this post went live, a 23andMe representative said that "nothing they have posted publicly indicates they actually have any 'health information.' These are all unsubstantiated claims at this point."

23andMe officials on Friday confirmed that private data for some of its users is, in fact, up for sale. The cause of the leak, the officials said, is data scraping, a technique that essentially reassembles large amounts of data by systematically extracting smaller amounts of information available to individual users of a service. Attackers gained unauthorized access to the individual 23andMe accounts, all of which had been configured by the user to opt in to a DNA relative feature that allows them to find potential relatives.

In a statement, the officials wrote:

We do not have any indication at this time that there has been a data security incident within our systems. Rather, the preliminary results of this investigation suggest that the login credentials used in these access attempts may have been gathered by a threat actor from data leaked during incidents involving other online platforms where users have recycled login credentials.

We believe that the threat actor may have then, in violation of our terms of service, accessed 23andme.com accounts without authorization and obtained information from those accounts. We are taking this issue seriously and will continue our investigation to confirm these preliminary results.

You can read more in an article by Dan Goodin published in the arstechnica web site at: https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/private-23andme-user-data-is-up-for-sale-after-online-scraping-spree/ 

The State Historical Society of Missouri received the Excellence in Genealogy & Local History Award at the Missouri Library Association Annual Conference held Oct. 4-6 in Columbia.

The award recognizes the State Historical Society’s efforts to provide free public access to more than 9.5 million pages of digitized online Missouri newspapers.

“The Missouri Digital Newspaper Project allows patrons to search online rather than doing more tedious research on microfilm. It saves a great deal of time,” according to Patsy Luebbert, who manages the project for the State Historical Society. Luebbert said the collection helps researchers learn more about the day-to-day lives of Missourians and the political, cultural, and economic events that have influenced Missouri small towns and its largest cities.

Missouri was one of the first states to begin digitizing historic newspapers through Chronicling America, a joint project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. Since 2008, SHSMO has been digitizing newspapers from every Missouri county, and the Society continues to make millions of additional pages available online.

The State Historical Society of Missouri provides the public with access to the largest collection of Missouri newspapers. The collection and preservation of Missouri newspapers has been one of the State Historical Society’s primary missions since its founding in 1898.

Today SHSMO is nearing 60,000 reels of microfilmed newspapers, and its collection ranges from the first newspaper printed west of the Mississippi in 1808 to over 240 active titles.

Support from the Missouri State Library’s LSTA grants and other donations to the project allowed SHSMO to continue to build a word searchable online resource. Due to increased demand for additional titles, SHSMO entered into an agreement with Newspapers.com to digitize eligible newspapers and improve access for researchers, whether they are working on genealogy, local history, or scholarly material.

To learn more about the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project, visit shsmo.org.

The following is a press release issued by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine:

The U.S. Census Bureau’s ability to adjust its approaches and innovate enabled it to complete the 2020 census despite the difficulties raised by the COVID pandemic and other challenges, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report reviews the 2020 census and the quality of data collected and makes recommendations for the 2030 census.  

“The 2020 census was completed under exceptionally difficult circumstances, and many of its innovations were successful, including self-response via the internet,” said Teresa Sullivan, chair of the panel that wrote the report, and university professor of sociology and president emerita of the University of Virginia.  

Other key innovations included the reengineering of field management and case handling systems, and minor use of administrative records data — such as data collected as part of government tax programs or from the previous census — to enumerate some nonresponding households.  

However, the report also identifies several problems, including a widening gap in census coverage and data quality between different racial and ethnic groups compared to the 2010 census. In the 2020 census, net overcounts increased for White and Asian people, while net undercounts increased substantially for Hispanic people, Black people, and American Indians on reservations. These differentials in counting have adverse implications for use of the census data to equitably allocate fixed resources, such as Congressional representation, funding, and services.  

The report examines “age heaping” — unusually high levels of reporting of ages ending in 0 or 5, as occurs when roughly estimating a person’s age — as a key indicator of data quality issues. The report concludes that this age heaping was particularly pronounced in 2020 relative to the 2010 census and was largely a function of proxy reporting of census information for nonresponding households, such as from a neighbor or landlord. 

The Census Bureau’s decision to use a new and untested approach to protecting the confidentiality of census data heightened concerns regarding data quality. In the very late stages of 2020 census planning, the Census Bureau decided to replace its methods for confidentiality protection with an entirely new approach that had not been tested, prototyped, or deployed in the population census context.  

While confidentiality protection is a critically important responsibility of a statistical agency, the report says, this decision was made without appropriate consideration regarding the utility of resulting census data products to fulfill the many important functions of census data. The new methods for confidentiality protection were not ready for use in 2020 census production and substantially degraded the value of the 2020 census data products in terms of timeliness and quality. 

Looking Forward to the 2030 Census

The report recommends that as the Census Bureau plans for the 2030 census, it should focus on a small and manageable number of major innovation areas and pursue a rigorous program of testing and systems development. The report suggests the following as priority goals for research and development: 

Goals and designs for the 2030 census should be developed in true partnership with census data users and the community of myriad stakeholders and state, local, tribal, and federal government partners, the report says.  

The study — undertaken by the Panel to Evaluate the Quality of the 2020 Census — was sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.  

An article by Patty Taylor published in the beaumontenterprise web site contains lots of helpful hints for anyone planning to attend the RootsTech conference from February 29 through March 2. It includes hints for those planning to attend in-person as well as those attending remotely on-line.

Check it out at: https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/entertainment/article/everything-need-know-attending-rootstech-18412561.php.