The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told employees Wednesday that it is blocking access to ChatGPT on agency-issued laptops to "protect our data from security threats associated with use of ChatGPT," 404 Media reported Wednesday. From the report:

"NARA will block access to commercial ChatGPT on NARANet [an internal network] and on NARA issued laptops, tablets, desktop computers, and mobile phones beginning May 6, 2024," an email sent to all employees, and seen by 404 Media, reads. "NARA is taking this action to protect our data from security threats associated with use of ChatGPT."

The move is particularly notable considering that this directive is coming from, well, the National Archives, whose job is to keep an accurate historical record. The email explaining the ban says the agency is particularly concerned with internal government data being incorporated into ChatGPT and leaking through its services. "ChatGPT, in particular, actively incorporates information that is input by its users in other responses, with no limitations. Like other federal agencies, NARA has determined that ChatGPT's unrestricted approach to reusing input data poses an unacceptable risk to NARA data security," the email reads. The email goes on to explain that "If sensitive, non-public NARA data is entered into ChatGPT, our data will become part of the living data set without the ability to have it removed or purged."

The following announcement was written by Jay Rosenzweig and Chris Schauble:

"My Birth Mother’s Dying Wish was to Meet Me"

May 1, 2024 -- Award-winning private investigator Jay Rosenzweig and award-winning Los Angeles Morning News Anchor Chris Schauble are teaming up to bring audiences a thrilling new talk show that focuses on reuniting family members who have been separated for years or never even knew about each other!

The show, titled "Finding Family DNA" brings Jay (Founder/CEO of Birthparentfinder.com) and Chris together once again after Jay found Chris' birth family 10 years ago. The result of that award-winning news story helped hundreds of people find their long-lost family members.

This show explores stories of people searching for their family, mainly through DNA testing. Viewers will learn about the fascinating journey of connecting with long-lost relatives using modern technology. They will witness heartwarming reunions and the power of genetic discovery. This is an inspiring and informative series on finding family through DNA. New episodes drop every Wednesday morning, beginning May 1st.

In each episode, Chris and Jay bring in guests to talk about their experience in finding their missing relatives and the results of their reunions.  Viewers will also hear from an expert Genealogist on how DNA is used in solving these cases.  Each episode will have a unique and heartwarming story that will leave viewers with a renewed appreciation for the power of finding family.

The show will premiere on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@FindingFamilyDNA beginning May 1st, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday.  For extra content, viewers can also watch/listen to the show through a paid subscription with Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/FindingFamilyDNA.

Don't Miss Out on These Engaging Episodes.

Subscribe to the Finding Family DNA podcast to enjoy this inspiring and informative series on finding family through DNA. New episodes drop every Wednesday morning beginning May 1st.

You can learn more at https://www.birthparentfinder.com/ and also on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@FindingFamilyDNA.

Thousands of migrants board trucks in Mexico each year in the hope of reaching the U.S. border and building a new life. Some of those journeys end in tragedy. A cross-border team of investigative journalists in Latin America, Europe and the United States collaborated for seven months on a database that gives a glimpse into dangerous and deadly human smuggling.

Data journalists reviewed public records, news coverage and reports by an advocacy group to create the database documenting nearly 19,000 migrants’ journeys through Mexico. This attempt by reporters to map events across six years and the routes taken by the trucks is unprecedented. Some migrants’ journeys start in the Mexican state of Chiapas on the country’s southern border with Guatemala, and others make it as far as the state of Tamaulipas on the border with Texas. ICIJ helped fact-check the data.

The events listed in the database cover the years 2018 to 2023 and reveal only a fraction of cases, since most of the smuggling remains undetected. The team documented 172 cargo vehicles, most of which were pulling trailers — with no ventilation system — containing anywhere from a few to hundreds of migrants, traveling for days on end in unsafe and overcrowded conditions and sometimes scorching temperatures. The migrants who were found by authorities through routine inspections or because the cargo vehicle was abandoned by the side of the road by the smugglers reported agonizing and inhumane conditions. ICIJ and its media partners documented at least 111 deaths, with hundreds more injured.

This article is part of “Cargo trucks: a trap for migrants,” a reporting collaboration led by Noticias Telemundo and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Bellingcat. Pie de Página and its partners Chiapas Paralelo and En un 2×3 Tamaulipas reported in Mexico, Plaza Pública in Guatemala and Contracorriente in Honduras.

You can read the full story in an article by Jesús Escudero, Brenda Medina, Delphine Reuter, Ronny Rojas, Pablo Medina Uribe and Marión Briancesco published in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist's web ste at: http://bit.ly/4bjb3wd,

When Parwinder Grewal, then-president of Vermont State University, announced his plan in February 2023 to eliminate most of the physical books from the state college system's libraries and switch to an all-digital library, students, faculty and staff described his decision in many ways, none of them flattering: "shocking," "embarrassing," "surreal," "patriarchal" "ableist" and "a joke," to name a few.

For the students in Sam Davis-Boyd's documentary filmmaking class at VTSU–Castleton, the announcement — part of a flawed plan to cut $5 million annually from the state college system's budget — was something more: an opportunity to practice documentary filmmaking in real time. 

One day after Grewal's announcement, students in Davis-Boyd's Documentary Workshop class decided to forgo their previously scheduled projects. Instead, the students focused their attention on what it meant for a college to no longer offer physical books in its campus library. 

“That’s kind of the nature of documentary filmmaking," said Davis-Boyd, an assistant professor of communications. "You think you’re going to do one thing, and then the story changes and unfolds.”

The film, titled "Error 404: Books Not Found," premiered last week on the Castleton campus, with a second showing tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, May 8, at 5 p.m. at VTSU–Johnson. The 30-minute documentary chronicles the monthslong protests and community activism in spring 2023 that ultimately led to Grewal's resignation in April 2023 and his cost-cutting measures being rescinded.

You can read more in an article by Ken Picard at: http://bit.ly/3JGvzLv

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

Classical Greek and Roman thinkers exerted a profound influence on America’s Founders, according to Jeffrey Rosen, author of “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.”

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President of the National Constitution Center and author Jeffrey Rosen and Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan discuss the Founders’ “Pursuit of Happiness” at the National Archives in Washington, DC, April 24, 2024, to kick off a multiyear celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. National Archives photo by John Valceanu.

On April 24, to kick off the National Archives' multiyear celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan hosted a conversation with Rosen. The two discussed what “the pursuit of happiness” meant to the nation’s Founders and how that famous phrase defined their lives and became the bedrock of our democracy.

According to Rosen, who serves as president of the National Constitution Center, the Founders idea of “the pursuit of happiness” may, surprisingly, stand in stark contrast to what the phrase means to Americans today. “When you think about happiness today, it’s ‘You do you! Let it all hang out! Follow your bliss!’ Pursuing pleasure, basically,” Rosen said. “For the Founders, it was the opposite. It was resisting immediate pleasure so you could achieve the long term well-being that comes from self-mastery.”

Shogan asked if the regulation and self-moderation of immediate gratification that the Founders found so critical in building the nation were in opposition to another of the three founding principles: liberty.

“For the Founders, personal self-governance is necessary for political self-governance,” Rosen stated. “Far from being in tension, they think the whole American experiment is going to fall, unless people can find the self-restraint, the moderation, the self-mastery to do two things: First, to learn enough about the history of liberty, so that they’ll defend it when it’s under siege. And second, to vote wisely; to choose moderate, temperate, virtuous leaders who, instead of being driven by ambition or avarice, will tend to the public good.”

During the discussion, Shogan noted the stark dichotomy that the Founders included life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence as “unalienable rights,” while many themselves relied on and profited from the labor of enslaved peoples.

“It was very striking that all of the enslavers from Virginia in the founding generation—Jefferson, Mason, Madison, Patrick Henry, and Washington—all said that slavery was immoral and violated the natural rights of the Declaration. And when Jefferson said ‘All men are created equal,’ he included enslaved people in that, and he always insisted that slavery should end at some point in the distant future. What was really striking for me to learn is that, far from denying their hypocrisy, they acknowledged it.”

Following the discussion, the speakers received questions from the audience.

View the discussion on the National Archives YouTube Channel.

View the National Archives Calendar of Events for information on future events.

Joseph George Sutherland, 62, was sentenced to life without parole for 21 years in two 1983 murders in Toronto. He is therefore scheduled to be released when he is 83 years old.

A Toronto detective says police would never have pinpointed a Moosonee man as the offender in the historic murders of two Toronto women, 40 years ago, if it weren't for recent developments in investigative genetic genealogy. 

Erin Gilmour, 22, and Susan Tice, 45, were both killed in their Toronto homes in 1983; sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. 

Joseph George Sutherland, 62, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to two counts of second-degree murder in their deaths.

He was sentenced March 22, 2024 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 21 years on two counts of second-degree murder.

Detectives were able to link the two killings using DNA technology in 2000, according to the Toronto Police Service, with investigators determining the same man killed both women.

You can read more in an article by Kate Rutherford published in the CBC.CA News web site at: https://bit.ly/3wp9Pkd.

The essential guide to Manx folk dancing was first published in 1983 as a book and cassette.

An essential guide to Manx folk dance has gone online more than 40 years after it was first published.

Still the ‘go-to’ reference book for both new and experienced dancers, Rinkaghyn Vannin – the Dances of Mann was produced in 1983 by members of the dance group Bock Yuan Fannee and folk dance collector Mona Douglas and published by the organisation Sleih gyn Thie.

Three years later, a cassette of the accompanying dance music recorded by John Kaneen and featuring a variety of leading Manx musicians was released as a learning aid.

Now, after four decades, the trustees of Sleih gyn Thie and Culture Vannin have worked together to make both the book and music audio freely available online.

Former trustee of Sleih gyn Thie and one of the dancers behind the book, Rosemary Speers said: ‘Rinkaghyn Vannin was produced by a team of us in response to the growing interest in Manx dance, both in the island and internationally through the growth of folk festivals.

You can read more in an article by James Campbell   in the Isle of Man Today web site at: https://tinyurl.com/mryaj8bh.

The following is a book review written by Bobbi King:

Mastering Spanish Handwriting and Documents: 1520–1820
by George R. Ryskamp, Peggy Ryskamp, H. Leandro Soria. 
Genealogical Publishing Co., 2023. 307 pages

George and Peggy Ryskamp, and H. Leandro Soria have compiled an impressive resource for anyone encountering the challenges of deciphering and interpreting the complexity of Spanish handwriting. Within each chapter are the specific documents studied in a step-by-step manner that help develop the student’s skills in methodology and expand the expertise needed to take on the intricacies of deciphering Spanish script.

The chapter “Handwriting and the Spanish Language” gives a brief overview of the history of the Spanish language, describes specific letterforms, and describes the differences in syntax (the arrangement of words in a sentence) between the language style found in old Spanish documents and today’s modern Spanish language.

Two chapters, “Marriage in Facie Ecclesiae” and “Marriage Dispensations and Contracts,” offer numerous examples of marriage documents. The pivotal events of marriage provide the diversity of documents and hands-on practice that enhance expertise in sharpening interpretive abilities while providing insight into the historical context of Spanish customs associated with the establishment of families, both within and outside the marital state.

The chapter “Economics and Society: Types of Notarial Records” reviews examples of notarial records governing financial and economic transactions. 

In “Dying the Good Death, as Seen in Parish Records,” and “Dying the Good Death, as Seen in Notarial Records,” are reviewed details of the testaments, parish records, and related documents that reveal the nuances of the Spanish concept of “dying well.”

The chapter “The Quest for Salvation: Baptisms, Confirmations and the Eucharist” emphasizes the predominant role of the Catholic Church in the daily lives of Spanish citizens. Religious sacraments and rites created the institutional records of names, places, family identifications, and notes that unravel family relationships within the handwritten parish records of the Church.

“Mastering Spanish Handwriting,” with its practical guidance and comprehensive content, will be an indispensable resource for anyone who must master the art of deciphering Spanish script.

“Mastering Spanish Handwriting” is available from the Genealogical Publishing Co. and from Amazon.