The following press release was written by the organizers of the Really Useful Family History Show:

Practical Saturday

at the Really Useful Family History Show

on Friday 11^th and Saturday 12^th November

It is almost here! The online Really Useful Family History Show is living up to its really usefultheme with thirty interactive workshops on Practical Saturday.

With workshop topics from dealing with “tricky” handwriting to exploring “pesky” manorial documents, and from family heirlooms to oral history, there is something to tempt every family historian.

All ticket holders are able to participate in the interactive workshops by booking a place at: https://www.fhf-reallyuseful.com/workshops

When the show is live online, there are also Expert Connect sessions where help can be sought from specialists, along with the Exhibition Hall where there will be many local family history societies and others where specialist help and advice can be found.

PLUS there is a raft of expert talks which can be accessed for two weeks by ticket holders.

Full details and all-inclusive tickets available at: https://www.fhf-reallyuseful.com/

Proton introduced a new feature to the company's VPN (Virtual Private Network) this week. Best of all, it is even available free of charge (although the free version is missing a few things that are included in paid versions).

Also, Proton's free VPN is the only free VPN I would ever trust to not spy on its users, to not collect private information from its users, and to not contain malware (malevolent software). Free VPNs have a poor reputation for spying on their users; Proton is different. You can trust Proton.

I started with Proton's free VPN service, found I liked it so I paid for an upgrade, and have been using Proton's (paid) VPN for a some time and switched to the new version as soon as it became available this week. I have been impressed with it so far.

According to Proton's web site: "We created Proton VPN to protect the journalists and activists who use Proton Mail. Proton VPN breaks down the barriers of Internet censorship, allowing you to access any website or content." However, it was proven to be so useful for journalists and activists, the company soon expanded its use to include everyone on the internet who is concerned about maintaining their privacy.

Again quoting the Proton web site at: https://protonvpn.com/: "We believe privacy and security are fundamental human rights, so we also provide a free version of Proton VPN to the public. Unlike other free VPNs, there are no catches. We don't serve ads or secretly sell your browsing history. Proton VPN Free is subsidized by Proton VPN paid users. If you would like to support online privacy, please consider upgrading to a paid plan for faster speeds and more features.

"We believe that everyone has the right to online privacy, therefore we provide free VPN access to those who can't afford a paid plan.

"The Proton VPN free plan does not have a duration limit (you can use it as long as you want), and we do not sell your data unlike some other free VPN services."

Proton VPN has Free servers in 3 countries, available for Free users. The Free VPN servers offer medium speed.

Indeed, the primary need for any VPN is privacy. As a Swiss VPN provider, Proton cannot legally log user activity or share data with third parties. The company's anonymous VPN service enables Internet without surveillance.

Note: Switzerland has long been hailed as a bastion of security. Data security is held sacred in Switzerland, and Swiss privacy laws are just plain better than anywhere else in the world. In fact, security-minded companies — like pCloud and ProtonVPN - are also based in Switzerland. 

I will write about pCloud some other time. It is another online service based in Switzerland that I use and am pleased with it.

There are three major laws regulating data protection and information privacy in Switzerland: Article 13 of the Swiss Constitution, the Federal Act on Data Protection (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These laws force businesses to ask permission from their users whenever they need to store and process their personal data. Swiss companies in general are more secure than their U.S.-based counterparts, thanks to Switzerland’s strict laws governing the processing of personal data. 

The driving force behind these privacy laws are required because of the Swiss Constitution. Switzerland is one of very few countries to have data processing regulations built into its constitution. Article 13 of the constitution provides several protections to Swiss citizens in regards to online communications, email and the processing of personal data. The article states, in part:

Don't you wish that ALL internet companies were based in Switzerland?

The requirements of the Swiss Constitution are further explained in two sets of laws:

Installation

Installing Proton's VPN was simplicity itself: Go to https://protonvpn.com/, click on "Create Free Account,"" and then click on the option you want: free, or select from any of several paid options.

Note: If you are new to Proton, I would suggest you first sign up for the free account. If, over the next few days, if you find that you like the service, I would suggest you read the various options for paid accounts and then choose one of those. Prices are modest: varying from $4.99/month (U.S.) to $9.99/month. The longer the length of your subscription, the cheaper the price. 

If you select a paid service, Proton VPN operates over 1,000 servers in more than 60 countries around the world, so there will always be a VPN server nearby to provide you with a secure, fast connection. Users with a VPN Plus or Proton Unlimited plan can access the company's large and expanding network of high-speed (10 Gigabit per second) Plus servers.

Proton VPN supports 3 different VPN protocols: (1.) the older OpenVPN protocol used by most VPN providers, (2.) the newer WireGuard protocol that is becoming popular (it's faster and more secure), and (3.) a brand-new Stealth protocol, that can avoid detection and let you bypass internet censorship and VPN blocks.

Stealth is available only on Proton and is even available to free users. For now, you can use Stealth on Android, macOS, and iOS apps. (There is no Stealth capability yet on Windows or Linux, although Proton does plan to add those services soon.) I am using the Mac version on my desktop and laptop Macs, along with the Android version on my cell phone and on my tablet computers.)

Stealth uses obfuscation to hide your VPN connection from censors. The general idea is to make VPN traffic look like “normal” traffic — or common HTTPS connections. Stealth does this by using obfuscated TLS tunneling over TCP. This is different from most popular VPN protocols that typically use UDP, making them easier to detect and block. Without going into too much detail, Stealth also establishes VPN connections in a specific and unique way that avoids alerting internet filters.

In other words, not even your ISP (Internet Service Provider) will know you are using a VPN if you use Stealth. This is a major advantage for use in countries where local governments block VPNs, such as in China, Russia, many Arab countries, and quite a few others.

Proton also supports Tor Network in the Proton VPN. See https://protonvpn.com/support/tor-vpn/ for the details

Summation

I have found the Proton VPN to be easy to use, has more than 1,800 servers in more than 64 countries, and the paid version supports high speeds (up to 10 gigabits per second). I signed up for the $4.99/month (U.S.) option and am pleased that I am now surfing the web securely.

By the way, I am not paid by anyone to publish this article. I do not use affiliate links. I am simply a satisfied Proton VPN user and I wish to tell my online friends about it.

This article only "scratches the surface" in describing all the functions of Proton VPN. You can read a lot more at https://protonvpn.com.

While there, also take a look at Proton Mail, Proton Drive, and Proton Calendar. They are great products also. And highly secure.

Tech archivist Jason Scott has announced a new website called Discmaster that lets anyone search through 91.7 million vintage computer files pulled from CD-ROM releases and floppy disks. The files include images, text documents, music, games, shareware, videos, and much more.

Discmaster opens a window into digital media culture around the turn of the millennium, turning anyone into a would-be digital archeologist. It's a rare look into a slice of cultural history that is often obscured by the challenges of obsolete media and file format incompatibilities.

The files on Discmaster come from the Internet Archive, uploaded by thousands of people over the years. The new site pulls them together behind a search engine with the ability to perform detailed searches by file type, format, source, file size, file date, and many other options.

"The value proposition is the value proposition of any freely accessible research database," according to Scott. "People are enabled to do deep dives into more history, reference their findings, and encourage others to look in the same place."

Discmaster is available at: http://discmaster.textfiles.com/

My thanks to newsletter reader D B Carre  for telling me about this new resource.

I am sure the following announcement will interest many genealogists. Here is the latest update from CZUR:

CZUR Fancy Pro is basically a scanner of everything you ever asked us for  :

•  Work as a scanner, webcam, document camera & visualizer
  
•  Tiltable camera head, adjustable height
  
•  Good for live-streaming, presenting, video meeting
  
•  Featuring different modes
  
•  Super light-weight & portable
  
•  Keep all the great functions like the Curve-Flatten Technology
  
•  Super Early Bird $149, free shipping
  

And those who join our group will receive a Secret Perk link when we launch, which will be even lower than $149! Join our group now! 

Join Group Now!

The following press release was written by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM):

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) at Mason, in collaboration with the Office of Historic Resources, City of Fairfax, Virginia, and the Brandy Station Foundation (Brandy Station, VA) has received a Foundations grant in the amount of $60,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Preservation and Access.

The purpose of this grant is to support the planning for the creation of a digital archive of the unique Civil War graffiti covering the walls of two historic house museums in Virginia—Historic Blenheim (Fairfax) and the Graffiti House (Brandy Station)—and for the planning of the expansion of this effort to several of the other Civil War graffiti sites in the greater Northern Virginia region.

This funding began in Oct. 2022 and will end in late Sept. 2023. 

###

About George Mason University

George Mason University is Virginia's largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls 38,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the last half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity and commitment to accessibility. Learn more at http://www.gmu.edu

From an article by the Associated Press:

Culture minister estimates losses are in the hundreds of millions of euros

The exquisite golden tiara, inlaid with precious stones by master craftsmen some 1,500 years ago, was one of the world's most valuable artifacts from the blood-letting rule of Attila the Hun, who rampaged with horseback warriors deep into Europe in the 5th century.

The Hun tiara, also known as a diadem, is now vanished from the museum in Ukraine that housed it — perhaps, historians fear, forever. Russian troops carted away the priceless crown and a hoard of other treasures after capturing the Ukrainian city of Melitopol in February, museum authorities say.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its eighth month, is being accompanied by the destruction and pillaging of historical sites and treasures on an industrial scale, Ukrainian authorities say.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Ukraine's culture minister alleged that Russian soldiers helped themselves to artifacts in almost 40 Ukrainian museums. The looting and destruction of cultural sites has caused losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros, the minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, added.

"The attitude of Russians toward Ukrainian culture heritage is a war crime," he said.

You can read the remainder of this article at: https://bit.ly/3yXx2rR.

From the 23andMe Blog:

In the latest update to 23andMe’s Ancestry Reports and features, we’ve added finer detail for customers with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry allowing them to trace their family connections back to seven genetic groups corresponding to regions within Eastern and Central Europe.

Some of these regions overlap, but they map to areas with deep historical and cultural significance for people of Ashkenazi ancestry. The long history of pogroms, persecution, and the devastating horror of the Holocaust annihilated the connections for many of those with Ashkenazi ancestry to their families’ historical origins. DNA testing has the potential to offer hints to those connections where family history may be lacking.

That is in part the purpose of this update, to offer customers with Ashkenazi ancestry a deeper connection to those historical regions and cultural connections.

What is Ashkenazi Jewish Ancestry?

People with Ashkenazi ancestry are connected to Jews who settled in Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. The word itself, “Ashkenazi” is thought to come from the name Ashkenaz, a descendant of Noah in the Hebrew bible.

During their long history in Europe Ashkenazi Jews faced persecution and cultural isolation that in turn impacted their genetics.  Starting in the 11th century, Jews living in Europe began to experience intense persecution, which eventually led to their expulsion from many countries. This along with the plague that hit Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries decimated the Jewish population, which plummeted by close to 90 percent.

Those forces that both isolated the population and drastically reduced its size created what is known in genetics as a “population bottleneck.” Bottlenecks can be caused by geographic barriers, disease, migration, or persecution that in turn isolates a population over generations. That is what happened among Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe.

Scientists think that, because of this bottleneck, the 10 million Ashkenazi Jews who are alive today have descended from just a few hundred founding individuals.  Interestingly their modern descendants remain genetically more similar to other Jewish populations than to their European neighbors. In the twentieth century, amidst two World Wars, and the Holocaust, and after the war years, many Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to what is now Israel or to the Americas in search of greater cultural and religious acceptance. Today, over five million ethnic Ashkenazi Jews live in the U.S.

You can read a lot more at: https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/detail-for-ashkenazi-ancestry/

Soon, The World Will Have Access To More Local California History.

UC Riverside’s Center For Bibliographical Studies And Research will house 22 Southern California Community Newspapers — Preserving 150 years of local journalism that will be digitally accessible to the public by 2024.

The Topanga Journal, Topanga Messenger, Whittier Star Reporter, Beaumont Gazette, Baker Valley News, Yucaipa Valley Mirror, Alpenhorn News from Running Springs, Tustin News in Orange County, and The Liberator, an early 20th-century paper documenting the African American Community in Los Angeles, are some of the publications included. Several papers are still running today, others were short-run publications; all will be archived and preserved on microfilm, then digitized and available via the center’s California Digital Newspaper Collection, or CDNC, website. The CDNC serves as the state’s primary online repository of digitized California newspapers.

The project was made possible with a $58,000 grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. The project is part of the more than 25 million newspaper pages that have been archived and digitized with the support of other similar grants, said Brian K. Geiger, director of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research.

“The center’s primary mission is to preserve California history via its newspapers,” Geiger said. “This project is unique in that these are family or community-owned newspapers that for decades, and centuries in some cases, have only been available in physical copy to residents and visitors of those communities. Nobody else. Now we get to share with the world and learn more of california’s rich history.”

More than 100,000 pages are being scanned and placed on microfilm by backstage library works, a Pennsylvania-based company. Once this part of the process is complete, microfilm reels will be shipped back to UCR. The second part of the project is digitizing them in order to make them available online. This last leg is expected to take nine months to a year, Geiger said. The goal is to have all nine newspapers online by 2024.

Once the project is completed, about 100,000-150,000 pages will be searchable online. The oldest newspaper copy is the Herald of Banning, from the 1880s.

You can read more in an article by Sandra Baltazar Martínez published in the University of California, Riverside web site at: https://bit.ly/3eATU9P.

The Aeolian Islands are a group of seven islands situated north of Sicily. These include the islands of Lipari, Salina and Stromboli.

From the late 19th century there was large migration from this archipelago to USA, Australia and other parts of the world.

The seminar is being run in person and online from Melbourne Australia on 23 October 2022.

Last year people from many countries attended live by zoom.

Recordings are available (for a limited time) for those who cannot attend live.

A flyer is shown below.

The cost of AUD $45 is approximately $US 28.