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

I have been reading an interesting book. In fact, it is a book about my family. The original book was published in 1901, so it has long been out of copyright. I have seen it offered for sale as a reprinted book for $150 to $250. In fact, I purchased a printed copy of the book about 25 years ago for $150, and it now sits in a box in my basement. I ran out of bookshelf space, and I don't open this book all that often. Therefore, it was banned to the basement years ago and, admittedly, I haven't opened the printed book since.

The new book that I purchased a few weeks ago is exactly the same book. It has exactly the same words, exactly the same images, everything. Well, not quite everything: there are two major differences.

First, the new book is reprinted as an electronic PDF file. It was first saved on a CD-ROM disk. The disk takes up almost no space at all on the bookshelf and, even better, I can copy it to my computer's hard drive or to a jump drive or to most any other place I wish. If it is copied to the computer's hard drive, it essentially takes up no space at all. In fact, I now have multiple copies: one on the desktop computer, one on the laptop (great for when I am researching in a library or courthouse), one on the original CD-ROM disk, one on a jump drive, and one more copy that is kept online in the cloud in a password-protected online file storage service I use.

Second, the 999-page book printed in 1901 had no index! Can you imagine trying to find information about specific individuals in this book that contains information about 40,000 people? Someone else did create an index some years later, but iI haven’t yet found an electronic copy of that. In fact, I really don’t need it.

By using the tools built into Adobe Reader, I can now search this book looking for ANY word or phrase. The first thing I did was to search for a couple of small towns where my ancestors lived. Using Adobe Reader, this book on CD displayed every occurrence of those towns within seconds. I then searched for county names. Again, it found every county I am interested in within a very few seconds. Doing the same thing with the printed book would have required many hours, maybe days. 

Now here is the best part of all: whereas the printed book costs $150 to $250, depending upon the publisher, the CD-ROM version costs $6.99 and that includes shipping! Admittedly, I later found the same book as a downloadable file FREE OF CHARGE and I didn’t need to wait for delivery by the postman!

Can you see why I am enthused about books on CD-ROM disks or as downloadable files? They are cheaper, require less space, and are easier use. I can find information in the electroic version much more quickly than in the printed version. Even better, I can copy-and-paste text from the book directly into a genealogy program, an email message, a word processor, or most any other program. That's much easier than photocopying pages out of a printed book and then re-typing them into a computer program!

Not all the PDF files allow for copying-and-pasting, but many do. Here is an example that I copied and pasted to this article from the book on my family name:

40. John Eastman-* (John^, John-, Roger'), born Dec. 27, 1701 ; married April i, 1727, Martha Fitts, born Jan. 18, 1 701-2, baptized March 29, 1702, daughter of Richard and Sarah (Thorn) Fitts, of Ipswich, and SaHsbury, Mass. Mr. Eastman lived in Salisbury, Mass.

My printed version of the book will remain in the basement while the electronic version now occupies a place of honor on my hard drives, on a flashdrive, and a copy is available in the cloud in a private area that I pay for.

So where do you find genealogy books on CD or as downloadable files? The answer is, "In many places."

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/13219264

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. 

The following is an announcement from the National Library of Finland:

As of June, the National Library of Finland search service can help you find manuscript and archival material as well as ephemera. As the library collections contain several kilometres of such resources, their comprehensive cataloguing is expected to take years. The bibliographic information available through the search service will increase gradually as the daily work of describing and cataloguing resources progresses.

The National Library catalogues manuscript and archival material as well as ephemera in its archiving system. In the future, bibliographic information on these resources can be found in the National Library search service. Such descriptive metadata have until now been available primarily in the library facilities, on index cards and in paper files.  

The work of describing manuscript and archival material begins with basic information, which is to be included in the search service this year. Next up, the work will concentrate on more in-depth data about individual manuscripts and documents. For the Ephemera Collection, the first resources to be described are from 1810 to 1944, with the work progressing systematically towards the present.

In the future, archival material can be requested for examination in the Special Collections Reading Room through the National Library search service. The delivery time is 48 hours.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Ireland, Genealogical Office Manuscripts, Wills 

Also new this week, compiled by Denis O’Callaghan Fisher and Sir William Betham, these 10,501 records cover 1596 to 1866. Separately, both men worked on compiling pedigrees from prerogative and diocesan wills. Now in one collection, these are easier to explore than ever. You might find addresses, occupations and even other family members.  

Ireland Census 1911 

A further 5,483 new records have been added into the 1911 Census for Ireland, which were missed during the original transcription process. Plus, Findmypast has improved the searchability of the entire collection.  

Newspapers 

Three new titles, updates to a further five, and a total of 122,848 new pages make up this week’s newspaper release.  

New titles: 

·         Dublin Leader, 1901-1963 

·         Kerry News, 1894-1920 

·         Limerick Echo, 1899-1902, 1904-1916, 1918-1922, 1930  

Updated titles: 

·         Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 1823-1824 

·         Dublin Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, 1872 

·         Limerick Chronicle, 1826-1829 

·         Roscommon Herald, 1871 

·         Wicklow News-Letter and County Advertiser, 1886 

Take a look at the photo. Do these two look like identical twins? Well they aren't. Not really. Well... sort of.

They are cousins but very unique cousins. Some people (who may or may not be experts in genetics) also claim they are full siblings (I may not agree with that).

In any case, they are very closely related. WebMD claims they are are quaternary twins, which is very rare.

Oh yes, they are both named Peter.

OK, I'll let you figure out the relationship. It seems that their mothers, Sally and Chelsea, are identical twins. OK, that's not so rare but here's the second item in their relationship: Their fathers, Pedro and Peter, are ALSO identical twins!

According to Peter and Peter, ”Because our moms are also identical twin sisters, that actually makes us full siblings, not half-siblings.” 

The fact that both men are named Peter is simply coincidence, the parents named the new babies without consulting with the other parents.

You can read more in an article by Emily Lefroy published in the New York Post at: https://nypost.com/2023/06/20/were-cousins-but-also-genetically-brothers-heres-how/.

OK, so how do you fill out a pedigree chart for these two?

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG):

The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), the world’s largest organization of genealogy professionals, is pleased to announce the creation of the Kenyatta D. Berry African American Research Scholarship, which recognizes an aspiring professional with a significant interest in developing a career in African American genealogy.

The scholarship is named for former APG President Kenyatta D. Berry, in recognition of her extensive contributions in the field of genealogy, especially African American genealogy and enslaved ancestral research. Berry is also an entrepreneur, television host, and author.

“I am deeply humbled to lend my name to this scholarship, which supports aspiring professional genealogists in uncovering the hidden stories of African Americans,” said Berry. “It is a reminder that our actions, perseverance, and dedication can create a lasting impact on others. I hope this scholarship will continue to empower and inspire future generations to reach for their dreams and make a difference in the world."

For scholarship criteria, eligibility, details on the selection process, and to view the online application, visit https://www.apgen.org/cpages/awards-kenyatta-berry-african-american-research-scholarship. Applicants wishing to be considered for the inaugural scholarship must complete an application by 10 July 2023 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

The scholarship is open to both APG members and non-members and will be presented at the APG Professional Management Conference (PMC). The scholarship includes one registration for the PMC and reimbursement of up to $1,000 USD for hotel and travel expenses when attending the PMC in person. The scholarship recipient will be notified in advance.

For more information about APG’s awards, visit https://www.apgen.org/cpages/awards.

The following was written by the organizers of The Family History Show:

Join us for a captivating day of genealogy exploration. Watch free talks, ask the experts, and browse exhibitors, family history societies and genealogy companies from across the country. With free talks, convenient parking, and refreshments available, this event is a must for all Family history enthusiasts. Uncover more about your heritage and unravel the mysteries of your past. Get your tickets now and save on our two for the price of one offer.

Get your tickets now, for Saturday’s The Family History Show – York.

Make a Day of it

Book an expert session and watch a talk in the morning, then have lunch in our restaurant before finishing the day with a bit of retail therapy, chat with societies and catch another talk before you go.

The Family History Show – York features:

Free talks held throughout the day in two large lecture areas
Book a free personal 1-2-1 session with an expert
Free goody bag on entry worth over £10. 
Free Parking and Local Train Station
All Day Refreshments
Wheelchair Friendly Venue

Early-bird Ticket Offer

Get your tickets now and save, Two tickets for £10 (£10 each on the day) and you’ll also get a goody bag on entryworth over £10. 

Save 50% by getting two tickets for £10 for the York show here: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/york/tickets/

Talks you can look forward to at the York show include:

10:30 The Genetic Detective - tips and tricks to solving unknown DNA matches

Donna Rutherford - DNA Expert

Delve into genetic genealogy and explore effective strategies to unravel unidentified DNA connections. How to discover identifying information on key matches that will further your research and help you solve brick-walls. This talk will enhance your genetic genealogy journey and help you become a skilled genetic detective.

11:30 Pinpointing Your Ancestors

Mark Bayley - Online Genealogy Expert

Unleash the power of historical records and maps to reveal the art of pinpointing your ancestors. Join us for an illuminating talk that brings your family’s past to life through geographic connections.

12:30

Tracing The Ancestral Home

Nick Barratt - Historian, Author and Professional Genealogist

A talk exploring the sources that enable you to research the history of the houses where your ancestors lived.

13:30

Breaking Down Brick Walls

Mark Bayley - Online Genealogy Expert

Uncover the secrets to overcoming stumbling blocks in your family history research! Discover new and innovative search strategies to locate those elusive relatives. Explore unique record collections that can tell you more about your ancestors' lives.

14:30

Tips & Tricks for Online Research

Keith Gregson - Professional Researcher & Social Historian

Keith shares top tips & techniques for finding elusive ancestors, illustrated by some fascinating case studies. He is both a popular and academic historian with a range of publications stretching over the past 40 years.

Talk times may be subject to change, please check the timetable at the venue on the day of the show for any changes.

Early-bird Ticket Offer

Get two tickets for £10 for the York show here: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/york/tickets/

Check out Family History TV on YouTube with their free short videos. These how-to-guides are by leading experts covering a variety of topics. Their speakers specialise in subjects from the world of British Genealogy, Military History, DNA, House History and Social History and many of them are past and present speakers from The Family History Show. Watch a short video now at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMnBEpCg-QwVzkq-zU4GDGg

The UK & Ireland FindAGrave Index, 1300s-Current has been seeing regular additions over the past nine months. It now holds a total of 17,412,192 entries, an increase of more than 2.7million since last August.

Of these additions, some 101,000 entries relate to burials of individuals who may have been born on the island, died there, or both. All 32 historical counties are represented in the new total number of entries – 1,074,916 – for Ireland. 

Total entries for Britain are:

• England: 13,612,154
• Scotland: 1,691,502
• Wales: 476,031

The State Historical Society of Missouri has added six newspapers from Nodaway County to its Missouri Digital Newspaper Project, making hundreds of pages of historical Nodaway County news available to the public searchable and free online.

Six newspapers from Nodaway County, spanning the years 1870-1925, have been digitized, according to a news release from the organization: The Maryville Republican (weekly edition) from 1870-1910, the Maryville Republican (daily edition) from 1907-1910, the Maryville Times from 1881-1885, the Maryville Tribune (weekly edition) from 1890-1923 and the Maryville Tribune (daily edition) from 1915-1925.

The newspapers are available for viewing at shsmo.org/collections/newspapers/mdnp.

You can read more in an article by Geoffrey Woehlk published in the maryvilleforum web site at: https://tinyurl.com/34adscj2.

Julie Mamo and Julie Ansell had no idea the other one existed until their nephew, Jason Fisher, became curious about his heritage and decided to do a £35 ($44.57 US Dollars) MyHeritage DNA test.

Two sisters who had no idea the other existed have been united after spending more than 60 years apart, thanks to a surprising DNA test.

Julie Mamo, now 66, was born in Dover in 1956 and adopted at nine days old after her mother, Lillian Fisher, then 17 and unmarried, felt pressure to give her up.

She later moved to Australia with her adoptive parents, Mavis and David Holland.

Ms Fisher went on to have four more children including another daughter, Julie Ansell, now 64, who lives in St Margaret's Bay, Kent.

The sisters - now known as "Julie 1" and "Julie 2", were finally brought together after their nephew, Jason Fisher, embarked on a quest to discover his heritage.

Now they are determined to make up for the lost decades.

Ms Ansell recalled her mother, who has now died, telling her aged 12 that she had previously given up a baby for adoption.

Ms Mamo said: "It's surreal still even though we are together now, it's still really unreal, it's beautiful."

A DNA test on genealogy website, MyHeritage.com, revealed how Mr Fisher had a 90% match with Ms Mamo - who was unknown to him at the time.

You can read more in an article by Siba Jackson published in the SkyNews web site at: https://news.sky.com/story/long-lost-sisters-separated-for-60-years-united-after-surprising-dna-test-12907043.

I received a somewhat frantic e-mail recently from a reader of this newsletter. She mentioned a specific genealogy CD-ROM disk, but her question could apply to any CD disk of any topic. She wrote (in part):

"Help! I have a CD-ROM disk of [name deleted here] and it cracked. I want to replace it, but can't seem to find it anywhere. Any suggestions? Is there any other CD-ROM that has equivalent materials?"

Sadly, I was not able to offer much help. A cracked CD disk is useless, except maybe as a coaster for your coffee cup. Even a scratch the size of one human hair can render a CD-ROM disk useless; if it has visible physical damage, the problem is even worse. To make matters worse, the company that produced her disk is now out of business, so I doubt if she can find a low-cost replacement. I referred her to eBay to see if she can find a used copy of the same CD for sale.

With a bit of hindsight, anyone can quickly determine what my correspondent SHOULD have done: she should have made a backup copy while the CD was still usable. Then again, how many of us ever do that? I know that I occasionally create CD backups although not as often as I should. (Actually, I stopped purchasing CD-ROM disks several years ago but I still have lots of older disks that have been backed up.)

Such a solution would not have been practical a few years ago. However, nearly all computers built in the past 8 or 10 years contain CD-ROM drives that are capable of writing. The exception is that many of the new home computers no longer contain CD-ROM drives. 

In fact, nowadays I no longer recommend making backups to other CD-ROM disks. My suggestion now is to copy a CD-ROM disk to a flashdrive.

Making backups of your CD disks should be a trivial exercise. After all, how much would it cost you to replace a CD-ROM disk that becomes defective?

Most new computers or new CD-ROM drives include software to write to the CDs. In fact, most have an option to copy the entire contents of a disk to a new, blank disk or to a flashdrive. This is true for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux systems. Check the software already installed on your computer; I suspect you will find that you already have everything you need. If not, you can download free software that will make copies for you. 

Macintosh users already have the required software: open FINDER, click on APPLICATIONS, click on UTILITIES, and then click on DISK UTILITY. In fact, the Macintosh Disk Utility will duplicate Macintosh, Windows, and Linux disks alike. 

A Second Backup Plan

With today's hard drives typically having a storage capacity of a terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) or more, it is now practical to create backup images of CD disks and to store them on a hard drive or on flashdrives. After all, one large hard drive can now store hundreds of CD-ROM disk images. Probably the best method is to create .ISO images of the original CD disks. An .ISO "image" file is a method of merging all the files on a CD into a single compressed file according to a defined format. 

You can read more about .ISO images in the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_image.

The process is somewhat similar to creating a .ZIP file: many files can be combined into a single file for archival purposes. Having a single file simplifies the issue of maintaining backup copies. When needed, you can extract the .ISO file and copy it back to a new, blank CD-ROM disk that will be identical to the original. ISO images are especially useful when the original CD contains hidden files, a common occurrence. The .ISO files will store hidden and non-hidden files alike without any extra intervention required.

Microsoft does not supply software to create .ISO files. However, most third-party CD and DVD burning utilities will add that capability. If you do not presently own a Windows program that creates .ISO images, InfraRecorder at http://infrarecorder.org/ does a great job of creating ISO disks on Windows systems. Best of all, it is free, open-source software that doesn’t include junkware. Insert a disc, click the “Read Disc” button, and select a source drive to read from and destination ISO file to create.

Macintosh users already have all the software needed to create .ISO files; look at Disk Utility as described earlier. Several free Linux utilities are available to copy disks and to create .ISO files; look for the program called K3B or something similar.

A Word About Copyrights

Anytime you make copies of something, you should stop to think about copyright laws. In the U.S., copyright laws generally allow you to make backup copies of anything you legally own for your own personal use. However, you cannot give or sell copies to anyone else without the copyright holder's permission. As long as you make backup copies and keep them for your own use, you should not have a problem with copyright laws.

Your Action Plans

I'd suggest you look at all the CD-ROM disks you already own. Which ones would be disastrous if they were damaged beyond repair? Make a copy of those disks NOW!

Keep in mind that CD-ROM disks do not last forever. You might want to make new copies every three to five years. It's well worth the small investment of time and blank disks to safeguard your larger investments in software and data CDs!