MyHeritage has made a rather noteworthy announcement:

"We’ve been adding historical records at such a remarkable pace, we’ve decided to split our monthly post into two installments! In the first half of June 2023, we added 19 collections and 18 million records from Belgium, France and the United States. The collections include birth, marriage, death, obituary, and census records."

The announcement then goes on and on and on listing all the recently-added record collections. Rather than duplicating the list here, I will simply refer you to the full list in the MyHeritage Blog at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/06/19-historical-record-collections-added-in-the-first-half-of-june-2023/.

Can your blood type increase your chance of developing COVID? An article by Erin Prater published in the Fortune web site suggests that those with Type A blood might be at an elevated risk compared to those with Type O. 

If you have type O blood, thank your ancestors. They re the ones who gave you the blood type.

The article may be found at: https://fortune.com/well/2023/06/27/which-blood-type-greater-risk-getting-covid-19/.

I found an interesting article by Cheryl Winn-Boujnida, published in TheConversation web site:

In 2019, Doreen Rosenthal and I surveyed 775 Australian hobbyist family historians to examine their motivations.

They were adults aged between 21 and 93, but most were older and the median age was 63. The majority (85%) were women. This seems to be typical of hobbyist family historians. Women often take on the role of “kin keeper” – and have the time to devote to it when they’ve finished rearing children and have retired from paid work

Most family historians are older women. 

Survey respondents described why they were passionately engaged with their hobby – and how it made them feel. Some 48% “sometimes” felt strong negative emotions about what they found, while 15% did “often”.

There were five common distress triggers.

You can read the full article at: https://tinyurl.com/4h6s9m83.

The following is a press release written by Vivid-Pix:

Family History Center Provides Vivid-Pix Memory Stations.

June 27, 2023, Charleston, SC, USA.– Vivid-Pix www.vivid-pix.com, the leading provider of AI-powered image restoration software and solutions, celebrates the opening of the International African American Museum (IAAM) and the availability of Vivid-Pix Memory Stations for visitors to scan, restore, save and share their precious photos, documents and stories (https://vivid-pix.com/memorystation). 

For the past 2 years, IAAM has utilized Vivid-Pix Memory Stations to scan, restore and capture stories throughout Charleston. With the opening of the IAAM Family History Center, availability and engagement is furthered so that more stories can be shared.

Family History, Oral History, Family Stories, Reminiscing, …, shares life’s events. Photos, drawings, letters, and documents prompt memories – making events tangible and understandable.

Vivid-Pix helps individuals, families, friends, and organizations with their most treasured memories by inventing and harnessing technologies. Vivid-Pix Solutions (https://www.vivid-pix.com/solutions/) assists family historians, as well as paid and unpaid caregivers coping with cognitive decline and dementia through Photo Reminiscence Therapy. Vivid-Pix patented software has been sold in over 120 countries, improving old, faded photos and documents. 

For more information, please visit https://Vivid-Pix.com.

The International African American Museum (IAAM) explores the history, culture, and impact of the African American journey on Charleston, on the nation, and on the world, shining light and sharing stories of the diverse journeys, origin, and achievements of descendants of the African Diaspora. Across 11 galleries and a memorial garden with art, objects, artifacts, and multi-media interaction, IAAM is a champion of authentic, empathetic storytelling of American history. As a result, the museum will stand as one of the nation’s newest platforms for the disruption of institutionalized racism as it evolves today. The mission of IAAM is to honor the untold stories of the African American journey at the historically sacred site of Gadsden’s Wharf and beyond. For more information, please visit iaamuseum.org or call 843-872-5352.

As U.S. lawmakers commemorated the end of slavery by celebrating Juneteenth this month, many of them could have looked no further than their own family histories to find a more personal connection to what’s often called America’s “original sin.” 

In researching the genealogies of America’s political elite, a Reuters examination found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living presidents, Supreme Court justices and governors are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people.

Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, for example, Reuters determined at least 100 descend from slaveholders. Of that group, more than a quarter of the Senate — 28 members — can trace their families to at least one slaveholder.

Among those lawmakers from the 117th Congress are Democrats and Republicans alike. They include some of the most influential politicians in America: Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and Jeanne Shaheen.

In addition, Reuters determined that President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president — except Donald Trump — are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and — through his white mother’s side — Barack Obama. Two of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices — Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — also have direct ancestors who enslaved people.

In 2022, 11 of the 50 U.S. states also had governors who are descendants of slaveholders, Reuters found. They include eight chief executives of the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America, which seceded and waged war to preserve slavery. Two are seeking the Republican nomination for president: Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, and Doug Burgum of North Dakota.

Reuters found that at least 8% of Democrats in the last Congress and 28% of Republicans have such ancestors. 

You can read more in an article in the NBC News web site at: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaverys-descendants-americas-family-secret-rcna90826.

Fourteen more years of Catholic Standard & Times, spanning from 1916 to 1930, have just been added to the Catholic News Archives, a free online resource that provides access to 20 historic Catholic newspapers and news agencies from across the country from as early as the 1830s.  All material is fully searchable by date and keyword.

• Access to these newly digitized issues allows individuals to learn about many important issues,  including:
• Catholic involvement in World War I and responses to the 1919 influenza epidemic
• Catholic institutional development during a period of immense brick-and-mortar growth
• Catholic reactions to women’s suffrage, prohibition, and other political issues of the period
• Catholic responses to renewed Nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment
• Catholic community life and social engagement among diverse communities

This most recent grant from the American Catholic Historical Society builds on an earlier donation that supported the digitization of the Catholic Standard & Times from 1944 to 1963.

The Catholic Standard & Times, the official newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was published between 1895 and 2012.

Individuals can view material from The Catholic Standard & Times and nineteen other Catholic newspapers and news sources by visiting The Catholic News Archive.

• Scholars are using virtual and augmented reality tools to aid history research.
  
• The tools also enable laypeople to visit places and examine objects normally only available to scholars.
  
• Using VR, people will turn the pages of a 15th-century book or stand before Renaissance-era artwork in the Vatican.
  
• An AR project will let people walk through the 19th-century neighborhood around Union Station, when it was home to Chinese immigrants.
  

For most people, the chance to walk through a re-creation of early 20th-century Chinatown in Los Angeles or page through a 15th-century Christian devotional book known as a Book of Hours is the stuff of fantasy. But faculty at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences aim to bring historical objects into people’s laps — sometimes literally — through innovations in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

“As faculty we want to conduct scholarly research, but not just for itself; we want to take that knowledge and make it as broadly and widely accessible as possible,” says Bill Deverell, professor of history, spatial sciences and environmental studies at USC Dornsife.

Deverell is collaborating with Professor of Cinematic Arts Scott Fisher and a team of scholars at the USC School of Cinematic Arts on the Chinatown project, which includes an AR program that lets Union Station visitors see what their immediate surroundings looked like in the early 20th century, before much of Chinatown was razed to make way for the train depot. Using archival materials, such as photographs and maps depicting the streetscapes, the team aims to create an app enabling users to look through their phones and see a model of the old neighborhood, streets, homes and shops.

The project, which also involves the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, is still in the early stages, but Deverell says the team is making progress on filming, programming and research for the project.

You can read more in an article by Meredith McGroarty published in the USC Dornsife web site at: https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/virtual-and-augmented-reality-bring-historical-objects-to-life/. 

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

Press Release Number CB23-101

The U.S. Census Bureau today released new detailed social, economic, housing and demographic statistics for hundreds of race, tribal, Hispanic origin and ancestry populations based on the 2017-2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates. These data tables are typically released every five years and provide the most detailed information about populations that are not published in the annual ACS, 5-year data products. This is the third time the Census Bureau has released these detailed 5-year estimates. Previous releases are available from the 2011-2015 and 2006-2010 ACS 5-year estimates.

Educational Attainment for Selected Detailed Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Groups

“The Selected Population Tables and the American Indian and Alaska Native Tables provide a unique and vital look at socioeconomic and housing data that are essential to these smaller populations,” said Rachel Marks, chief of the Racial Statistics Branch. “These tables provide communities with specialized statistics to support their needs.” 

According to the newly released statistics, 2.7 million U.S. residents identified as American Indian and Alaska Native alone, and 6.3 million as American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in combination with one or more other races from 2017 to 2021.

Among the population age 25 and over, 15.5% of the American Indian and Alaska Native alone, and 21.8% of the American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in combination with one or more other races had a bachelor’s degree or higher; of those, 5.3% of the American Indian and Alaska Native alone, and 7.8% of the American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in combination with one or more other races had a graduate or professional degree.  

Other highlights about the American Indian and Alaska Native alone population:

Among the population enrolled in school (age 3 and over), 43.8% were in grades 1-8.

Among grandparents living with their own grandchildren under age 18, 45.8% were responsible for their care.

Among those age 5 and over, 32.1% spoke a language other than English at home.

Among those age 16 and over, 58.9% were in the labor force.

Veterans accounted for 6.3% of the civilian population age 18 and over.

Median household income was $50,183 (in 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars).

Among occupied housing units, 3.1% had no telephone service available.

Tables on fertility, industry and occupation, and health insurance are also available. Statistics are published for 1,059 population groups provided each group had an estimated population of at least 100 people at the national level. Iterated tables are produced for geographic areas in which  a group had a population of at least 50 people in that area who completed the survey. This product includes data for 13 geographic types such as Alaska Native Regional Corporations, American Indian and Alaska Native Areas, and Hawaiian Home Lands.

You can read more in the Census Bureau web site at: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/acs-selected-population-aian-tables.html.

The International African American Museum will soon open in Charleston, South Carolina, at one of the country’s most historically significant slave trading ports.

Overlooking the sacred site of Gadsden’s Wharf, at which an estimated 45% of enslaved Africans entered America, the museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor and resistance shaped the nation and the world.

It also includes a genealogy research center to help families trace their ancestors from their arrival on American soil.

“Truth sets us free, free to understand, free to respect and free to appreciate the full spectrum of our shared history, free to feel empathy and common purpose, and free to build a stronger future together,” said Joseph Riley, former Mayor of Charleston, North Carolina speaking at the opening ceremony on Saturday.

More than 23 years in the making, the museum had been originally set to open in 2020, but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as issues in the supply chain of materials needed to complete construction.