Latest News Articles

Everyone can read the (free) Standard Edition articles. However,  the Plus Edition articles are accessible only to (paid) Plus Edition subscribers. 

Read the (+) Plus Edition articles (a Plus Edition username and password is required).

Please limit your comments about the information in the article. If you would like to start a new message, perhaps about a different topic, you are invited to use the Discussion Forum for that purpose.

Do you have comments, questions, corrections or additional information to any of these articles? Before posting your words, you must first sign up for a (FREE) Standard Edition subscription or a (paid) Plus Edition subscription at: https://eogn.com/page-18077.

If you do not see a Plus Sign that is labeled "Add comment," you will need to upgrade to either a (FREE) Standard Edition or a (paid) Plus Edition subscription at: https://eogn.com/page-18077.

Click here to upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription.

Click here to find the Latest Plus Edition articles(A Plus Edition user name and password is required to view these Plus Edition articles.)

Do you have an RSS newsreader? You may prefer to use this newsletter's RSS feed at: https://www.eogn.com/page-18080/rss and then you will need to copy-and-paste that address into your favorite RSS newsreader.


New! Want to receive daily email messages containing the recently-added article links, complete with “clickable addresses” that take you directly to the article(s) of interest?

Best of all, this service is available FREE of charge. (The email messages do contain advertising.) If you later change your mind, you can unsubscribe within seconds at any time. As always, YOU remain in charge of what is sent to your email inbox. 

Information may be found at: https://eogn.com/page-18080/13338441 with further details available at: https://eogn.com/page-18080/13344724.


Latest Standard Edition Articles

  • 9 Oct 2023 9:14 AM | Anonymous

    This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I believe every computer owner should be aware that such technology is available, whether that user has a need for it or not.

    From music streaming to video calling, the internet has given us so much. It has also made it much easier to get to your computer when you're not actually sitting in front of it. There are now numerous remote access programs to choose from that will connect one computer to another across the web. What's more, a lot of the basic tools are free to use.

    Windows and macOS both have built-in remote access tools, but they’re not particularly straightforward to use, nor are they cross-platform. That’s why we’re focusing on free third-party options here.

    Get one of these tools, and you'll no longer have to worry about leaving a file on the office PC, or be without software on your work computer when you're at home. As long as you have a remote access program in place at both ends of the connection, you can log in to one laptop or desktop from another.

    You can read the full article by David Nield in the the Wired web site at: https://www.wired.com/story/easiest-ways-access-computer-remotely/. 

  • 9 Oct 2023 9:10 AM | Anonymous

    23andMe confirmed that the data available for sale online was genuine.

    The genetic profiles of potentially millions of 23andMe users have been put up for sale on a hacker forum by a seller who claimed the data could be used to target Ashkenazi Jews and those of Chinese descent.

    The company, which specializes in preparing ancestry reports for users who send in a saliva sample, confirmed that the data available for sale online was genuine, but said the leak was not the result of a breach in its systems.

    Rather, users’ individual accounts were compromised via other data leaks that exposed their login credentials to other sites. “We are taking this issue seriously and will continue our investigation to confirm these preliminary results,” 23andMe told Bloomberg in a statement.

    The anonymous seller began selling profiles for between $1 and $10 earlier this week, according to Wired, which notes that the hacker also claims to be offering the data of “celebrities” including Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg.

    You can read more in an article by Mark Alfred published in the DailyBeast web site at: https://www.thedailybeast.com/23andme-customers-genetic-profiles-on-sale-by-hacker.

  • 9 Oct 2023 9:07 AM | Anonymous

    The popular home DNA testing kit company 23andMe has revealed it was targeted in a cyberattack that resulted in unauthorized access to individuals' accounts.

    23andMe is investigating the breach, which appears localized to users who are part of the company's relative-matching service, DNA Relative. The company encourages all users to reset their passwords and sign up for two-factor authentication.

    CyberScoop and other cybersecurity blogs say they have seen data supposedly taken from 23andMe advertised for sale on an online forum. It is unclear how many people were affected by the breach.

    The company said the breach may have come as a result of customers using the same username and password for their 23andMe accounts as other online accounts that were less secure and the attacker then using these to get into people's accounts and scrape the data from there of everyone they were matched to as part of the DNA Relative service.

    This data can include a person's name, age, sex and location, as well as photographs and genetic ancestry information, including information that may be relevant to a person's health

  • 6 Oct 2023 5:30 PM | Anonymous

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

    Beginning U.S. genealogists soon learn that the 1890 census records were destroyed in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building on January 10, 1921. Many people who would like to see these records just shrug their shoulders and move on.

    A short search on the Web, however, soon reveals that not all of the records were destroyed. In fact, census fragments for 1890 in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and the District of Columbia survived and are available today.

    The morning after the fire 1921 fire, Census Director Sam Rogers reported the extensive damage to the 1890 schedules, estimating that only 25 percent of the records were destroyed, with 50 percent of the remainder damaged by water, smoke, and fire. Salvage of the water-soaked and charred documents might be possible, reported the bureau, but saving even a small part would take a month, and it would take two to three years to copy and save all the records damaged in the fire. The preliminary assessment of Census Bureau Clerk T. J. Fitzgerald was far more sobering. Fitzgerald told reporters that the priceless 1890 records were "certain to be absolutely ruined. There is no method of restoring the legibility of a water-soaked volume."

    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/13264227.

    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

  • 6 Oct 2023 9:27 AM | Anonymous

    The following is a press release written by Findmypast:

    UK

    Over 12 million records have been added to this existing collection, taking it right up to 2023. As with previous years, you’ll find a person’s name, address, and confirmation of whether they are the director of a company. 

    Updates have been made to over 1 million records in this collection, with refined dates and an improved search experience. Plus, there are over 63,000 new records available to explore. 


    A further 4,756 records have been added for the Yorkshire hamlet of Yapham, with both transcriptions and images available.

     

    One new title, updates to a further eight, and over 141,165 new pages make up this week’s newspaper release. 

    New titles: 

    Felixstowe Times,

    1925-1936 

    Updated titles:   

    Derry Journal, 1886-1890, 1925, 1943-1949, 1956-1974, 1978-1980, 1982-1988

    1956-1974, 1978-1980, 1982-1988 

       

    Galway Observer, 1912-1923, 1925-1927 

      

    Manchester Evening News, 1993 

    Northern Daily Telegraph, 1914 

     

    Northern Echo, 1872 

        

    Skelmersdale Reporter, 1964 

      

    South Wales Daily Post, 1990 

       

    Worcester Daily Times and Journal, 1912 

  • 6 Oct 2023 9:19 AM | Anonymous

    Artificial intelligence supporting Luxembourg’s printed heritage.

    Sam Tanson, Minister for Culture, Claude D. Conter, Director of the BnL, and Carlo Blum, Deputy Director of the BnL, invited members of the press and media to discover the new chatbot on the eluxemburgensia.lu portal. Capable of understanding French, German and English, the chatbot assists users in exploring Luxembourg’s history and offers answers based on historical newspaper articles.

    Drawing on a technology in use at ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-based chat agent developed by OpenAI, the BnL’s experts have indexed digitised Luxembourgish documents and prepared a high-performance database that supports semantic searches. This breakthrough marks a major milestone in the BnL’s mission to offer easier and enhanced access to its digitised Luxembourgish resources.

    The chatbot is a free and experimental tool that can be accessed remotely. To use it, all you need to do is log in using your library card or a Google account.

    You can learn more and even access the Luxembourg chatbot at: https://bnl.public.lu/en/a-la-une/actualites/communiques/2023/chatbot-eluxemburgensia.html.

  • 5 Oct 2023 1:57 PM | Anonymous

    The following book reviews were written by Bobby King:

    The Intrepid David Dodson 

    David Dobson, an industrious gentleman whose collections of names and data might otherwise have remained forever unnoticed, has had published these recent books. His dedication to his work has, no doubt, been important to the genealogies of persons of Scottish ancestry. 

    Each book has an introduction describing the places and people, and a reference guide in the back that explains the source initials in the entries.

    The following books, authored by David Dobson, are published by the Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, Maryland.


    The People of the Grampian Highlands 1600 –1699.

    The Grampian Highlands are situated in North East Scotland and extend from Aberdeenshire through Kincardineshire, the Braes of Angus, to Eastern Perthshire. The region was populated with small burghs, where a Gaelic-speaking people engaged in agriculture. Emigration did not occur until early 1700s, except for war prisoners who were banished to the Plantations.

    Example entry: FLAGER, DUNCAN, and his wife Agnes Bowman, in Kirkton of Lochlee, Angus, testament, 1627, Comm. Brechin. [NRS].


    The People of Glasgow and Clydesdale at Home and Abroad 1800 –1850.

    Glasgow’s rapid industrial growth, in the early 1800s, while beneficial to entrepreneurs and industrialists, brought social unrest to the working class with poor wages, child labor practices, and epidemics. Emigration from Glasgow to the newly-industrializing United States appealed to the working class and white-collar insurance and banking professionals. This book identifies people from Glasgow and neighboring Clydesdale who emigrated during the first half of the nineteenth century.


    The People of Barbados 1625 –1875.

    Captain John Powell claimed Barbados in 1625 for the English Crown, and two years later settlers from England followed to the island. English and Welsh entrepreneurs set up tobacco, sugar, and cotton plantations utilizing for laborers indentured servants, skilled artisans, rebels, criminals in chains, and African slaves. As the population increased and land became scarce, a second migration of laborers, planters, merchants and slaves set out for the Americas. 


    The People of North East Scotland at Home and Abroad 1800 –1850.

    This book identifies people from old counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire, Aberdeenshire, and Kincardineshire. The main clans and families here were Rose, Grant, Dunbar Brodie, Innes, Gordon, Leslie, Ogilvie, Keith, Forbes, Hays, Barclay, Fraser, Skene, Farquharson, Arbuthnott, Burnett, Irvine, and Douglas.


    The People of Aberdeen at Home and Abroad 1800 –1850.

    Old Aberdeen, founded 1125, and New Aberdeen, founded 1214, merged in the mid nineteenth century to become a major city and port embracing fishing and agricultural industries, exporting textiles, shipbuilding, and papermaking. This book contains references to people of Aberdeen from 1800 to 1850.


    The People of South West Scotland at Home and Abroad 1800 –1850.

    This book identifies people in or from the counties Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Dumfries-shire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Wigtownshire. Emigration from South West Scotland shifted from Ulster in the seventeenth century to North America and Australia by the nineteenth century.


    People of the Hebrides at Home and Abroad 1800 –1850.

    This book identifies residents of the Hebrides, a group of islands off the west coast of Scotland, especially Skye, Islay, Mull, Lewis, and Harris, and Hebrideans who emigrated to the Carolinas, Maritime Canada, and Australia during the early nineteenth century. 


    The People of Leith at Home and Abroad 1600 –1799.

    This book identifies residents of Leith during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Leith lies on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, and with a thriving seafaring economy of shipbuilding and whaling, was the most important port of Scotland until the Clyde ports of Glasgow-Greenock became predominant. 


    The People of Fife at Home and Abroad 1800 –1850.

    This book identifies residents and former residents of Fife, a coal mining region and major producer of textiles that lies on the east coast of Scotland. In the Dark Ages, it was a Pictish province which, in the nineteenth century, became a center of heavy industry.

    The many books by David Dobson are available from the Genealogical Publishing Company at: https://genealogical.com/store/?gpc_search=1&textinput_author_last_name=Dobson as well as from Amazon.

  • 5 Oct 2023 1:41 PM | Anonymous

    This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it strikes me that every American should keep themselves up to date on these issues.

    Former President Donald Trump is a defendant in a sizable number of criminal and civil cases. To help readers parse through these complex legal developments, the JustSecurity web site has centralized information on Trump’s major cases in the most comprehensive clearinghouse of its kind. On the web site, you will find links to relevant court proceedings, key statutes, government documents, and defense documents – as well as Just Security resources and analysis, media and other guides.

    The site promises to continue updating this page with new information as the trials develop. They hope this repository of information will be useful for analysts, researchers, investigators, journalists, educators, and the public at large. 

    If you think the Trump Trials Clearinghouse is missing something important, please send recommendations for additional content by email to lte@justsecurity.org.

    In the meantime, the Trump Trials Clearinghouse may be found at: https://www.justsecurity.org/88175/trump-trials-clearinghouse/. 

  • 4 Oct 2023 7:00 PM | Anonymous

    For more than half a century, the banker’s box containing details of a young couple’s heartbreaking final hours on this Earth gathered dust. That box in Great Falls, Mont., had plenty of company in police department storage rooms across the U.S. and Canada.

    Duane Bogle was discovered face down in his car on Jan. 3, 1956. He had been shot in the head. His girlfriend, Patty Kalitzke, was found the next day. She had been sexually assaulted, then shot to death.

    The decades passed until 2001, when a small amount of sperm was located on a vaginal sample from Kalitzke. Serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards and Boston mob boss “Whitey” Bulger were ruled out.

    Then using genetic genealogy, they made a link to the children of Kenneth Gould, who died in 2007. He was the killer.

    Gould is the oldest case cleared using genetic genealogy — technology that rose to prominence with the arrest of the Golden State Killer. It uses DNA websites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe to find the killer’s family.

    Now, genealogist Marc McDermott has established a database for cold cases cleared using information provided by the Forensic Genetic Genealogy Project led by Dr. Tracey Dowdeswell of Queen’s University.

    You can read more in an article by Brad Hunter published in the TorontoSun web site at: https://torontosun.com/news/crime/genetic-genealogy-database-hot-on-heels-of-cold-case-killers

  • 4 Oct 2023 6:36 PM | Anonymous

    This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, I suspect many readers of this newsletter have older computers in their possession and wonder what they can do to keep them useful for many more years.

    When Apple decides to end update support for your Mac, you can either try to install another OS or you can trick macOS into installing on your hardware anyway. That's the entire point of the OpenCore Legacy Patcher, a community-driven project that supports old Macs by combining some repurposed Hackintosh projects with older system files extracted from past macOS versions. Yesterday, the OCLP team announced version 1.0.0 of the software, the first to formally support the recently released macOS 14 Sonoma. Although Sonoma officially supports Macs released mostly in 2018 or later, the OCLP project will allow Sonoma to install on Macs that go back to models released in 2007 and 2008, enabling them to keep up with at least some of the new features and security patches baked into the latest release.

    Comment by Dick Eastman:

    I have a Macintosh laptop that is now more than 10 years old and no longer accepts updates from Apple. I didn’t want to throw it away so I took a different approach: i simply replaced the (now obsolete) Macintosh operating system with a current Zorin Linux operating system.

    Zorin OS is an alternative to Windows and macOS designed to make your computer faster, more powerful, secure, and privacy-respecting. It is also updated frequently and is at least as robust as the Macintosh operating system (and perhaps even MORE robust). It was a lot easier to install than following the rather complex method described above in this article. I am quite pleased with Zorin. It works on Macs and on PCs as well.

    You can learn more about Zorin at: https://zorin.com/os/


Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter









































Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software