Rootsweb.com RSS Feed for ZAMORA

HeritageQuest Online May Be Free for You

2006-09-05T12:17:49-06:00

September 04, 2006 Reminder: HeritageQuest Online May Be Free for You You may be able to access images of U.S. census records, more than 20,000 fully searchable genealogy and local history books, images of Revolutionary War Pension applications, PERSI, and more, all from the comfort of your home. The records are available on HeritageQuest Online, a service from ProQuest Information and Learning.
The free access is available to millions of American residents through their local, regional, and state libraries. However, not everyone has "gotten the word."

This was brought to my attention by a recent message posted to this newsletter's discussion boards, stating, "We have none of the ProQuest data available in our state for public access -- that includes the Historical Newspapers and the new ProQuest Obituaries. It is very frustrating and�"
I believe the writer is mistaken. It seems that EVERY resident of that writer's home state already can obtain free access to ProQuest's popular HeritageQuest Online. I thought I would post a reminder here that millions of American residents can obtain free in-home access to HeritageQuest Online right now.
You can obtain more information about this access in the Encyclopedia of Genealogy at http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline.

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Diversity Brings Breadth to U.S. History

2006-09-03T11:29:39-06:00

Diversity Brings Breadth to U.S. History American students often get the impression from history classes that the British got here first, settling Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. They hear about how white Northerners freed the black slaves, how Asians came in the mid-1800s to build Western railroads. The lessons have left out a lot.

Forty-two years before Jamestown, Spaniards and American Indians lived in St. Augustine, Florida. At least several thousand Latinos and nearly 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil War. And Asian-Americans had been living in California and Louisiana since the 1700s. Yet such details are rarely mentioned in American history books.

Now, more of these and other lesser-known facts about American minorities are getting more attention. The main reason is the nation's growing diversity. The nation is slowly awakening to the fact that our freedom was won by whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Orientals alike. Advancements in art, literature, industry and sports were made by the people with widely varied ethnic origins.

Erin Texeira of the Associated Press has written an excellent article about America's diversity. I think it should be required reading for all Americans, especially students. You can read the article on many newspaper web sites. I found it on the Seattle Post Intelligencer at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Forgotten_History.html.

From Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

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Good grief

2006-08-28T17:14:54-06:00

Due to technical difficulties, the schedule for converting RootsWeb mailing lists to the new Mailman list system has been changed. The updated schedule is as follows:

Monday, August 28 -- Lists D-F
Tuesday, August 29 -- Lists G-I
Wednesday, August 30 -- Lists J-L
Thursday, August 31 -- Lists M-O
Tuesday, Sept. 5 -- Lists P-R
Wednesday, Sept. 6 -- Lists S-U
Thursday, Sept. 7 -- Lists V-Z
Sept. 8 - 21 -- Non-Archived Lists, Newsgroup Gateways and -I Lists

Any further changes to the timetable will be listed at
the following site: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/migrate_sched.html

Note that lists A-C have already been converted. Subscribers should see very little difference in the converted lists.

Thanks,
Danielle Brown, ListAdmin for this list
dtxn@yahoo.com

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List Update Info

2006-08-19T20:52:01-06:00

To all:

Some of these lists have ALREADY migrated.
Below is some special information that still applies:

The new RootsWeb mailing list system (Mailman) has gone into effect and will be continuing for the next couple of weeks, staggered alphabetically according to the following schedule:

Thursday, August 17 - Lists A-C
Monday, August 21 - Lists D-F
Tuesday, August 22 - Lists G-I
Wednesday, August 23 - Lists J-L
Thursday, August 24 - Lists M-O
Monday, August 28 - Lists P-R
Tuesday, August 29 - Lists S-U
Wednesday, August 30 - Lists V-Z

You may check this link for any changes to the
timetable: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/migrate_sched.html

While the "migration" of the lists to a new server should process uneventfully for list members, there are a few points that need to be covered:

1. AOL users (and possibly some other ISPs), please check your spam folders, and, if you find list mail held as spam, you will need to be sure to click the *THIS IS NOT SPAM* link to send the list mail to your current mailbox. This will "train" the system to understand that mail from this new server is not spam.

2. If you are subscribed to both L & D mail modes of this list, the new system is not set up to send both
to the same email address. If you want to be subscribed in both modes (many subscribe to both -- regular
mail mode to read and delete and digest to file and save), it will be necessary to use another email address
for your digest mail. It is my understanding that if you are subscribed to the list in both mail modes with
the same address, you will be dropped from the digest list roster, so if this happens to you, please
resubscribe with another address (Yahoo might be a good choice for an alternate email address). This will not effect those who subscribe in either of the mail modes exclusively.

3. If you want to post from more then one account, just send me the addresses of the extra accounts and I
will add them to the Accept List. This means you can *post* from any of those accounts, while *receiving*
the list mail from the one you originally used to subscribe. This feature is handy if you want to post from
work but would prefer not to receive RootsWeb mail at your place of business.

4. The list's email address will change from listnamegoeshere-L@rootsweb.com to just plain ole XXX@rootsweb.com. However, both addresses will apparently work. SUBSCRIBE and UNSUBSCRIBE messages *must* contain the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" in the SUBJECT of the message.

5. In the event you receive an unsubscribe notice and believe it to be in error, please contact me privately
at listnamegoeshere-admin@rootsweb.com and I'll correct the problem.

6. Digest subscribers may notice some changes to the list digests. New instructions will be added to the
digests -- please read them. In addition, the digest volume and issue number may be different (out of sequence) from what you had been receiving. If your digests arrive in a different format than you are used to and you would like it changed, contact me privately at the list admin address for this list.

7. If you use email headers to filter list mail to special folders, you will probably need to tweak your filters once the new system begins.

8. If you run into any unusual or confusing occurrences with mail from this list that could possibly be
related to the changeover, let me know.

Thanks,
Danielle Brown

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IMPORTANT NORE FROM THE LIST ADMINISTRATOR!

2006-08-16T18:59:40-06:00

As the list administrator for over 70 lists, please bear
with me over the next few weeks as I try to learn how to
use RootsWeb's new programming. I just received the
tutorial today and have not yet had a chance to read
it.

The revised schedule for those updates is now as
follows. It is my understanding that the Gateways from the
message boards will not work from the time the first
lists start getting converted until the time that each
list is actually converted.

Thursday, Aug. 17th -- Lists A - C
Monday, Aug. 21st -- Lists D - F
Tuesday, Aug. 22nd -- Lists G - I
Wednesday, Aug. 23rd -- Lists J - L
Thursday, Aug. 24th -- Lists M - O
Monday, Aug. 28th -- Lists P - R
Tuesday, Aug. 29th -- Lists S - U
Wednesday, Aug. 30th -- Lists V - Z
Aug. 31st - Sept. 15th -- Non-Archived Lists,
Newsgroup Gateways, and -I Lists

It is also my understanding that I will now only be
able to provide one tagline, instead of 10 rotating
taglines as had previously been available. I will choose
to keep the following tagline:

"Posting of non-genealogical-current events, political
opinions, prayers, virus warnings, non-approved
solicitations, chain letters, jokes, poems, non-genealogical
stories, missing children notices, and flames are not
allowed on this list and may be grounds for immediate
removal and exclusion from the list. Questions or
comments about this policy may be directed to your list
administrator, Danielle Brown, at the
following address: dtxn@yahoo.com ."

All e-mail addresses have been removed from the
"reject" list in the present programming to prevent them
from automatically converting to the harsher "ban" list
in the new programming. However, I will not hesitate
to re-add e-mail addresses if I see the need to do so
based on infractions of the above-mentioned rules.

Other current taglines which you may want to make note
of are as follows:

Do you need a list of Rootsweb mailing lists to which
you are subscribed?
http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/

The 1930 U.S. Census was released to the public in
2002. For further information, visit the following
sites:
http://1930census.archives.gov/
http://www.rootsweb.com/~census/help/1930.htm

Visit the "Genealogy Hall of Shame" site for
information about genealogy-related scams!
http://blacksheep.rootsweb.com/shame/

The Texas Marriages Search Engine 1966 - 2003 and The
Texas Divorces Search Engine 1968 - 2003 can be
accessed through the following sites:
http://www.genlookups.com/texas_marriages/
http://www.genlookups.com/texas_divorces/

The Texas Births Database 1926 - 1995 and the Texas Deaths
Database 1964 - 1998 can be accessed through the
following sites:
http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/txbirths
http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/txdeaths

This list is archived!

This list is also searchable!

Hey -- any questions, gimme a ring at dtxn@yahoo.com or reply to this message.

Thanks,
Danielle Brown
List Administrator
Wednesday, August 16, 2006

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Message Board Improvements

2006-05-08T09:59:05-06:00

USING ANCESTRY.COM: "Preparing for the Message Board
Improvements Launch,"
by
Juliana Smith
=============================================================
Last month, there were 28,127,757 page views on the
Ancestry.com/RootsWeb.com
message boards and on April 30 there were more than
one million for that day
alone! That's a lot of people looking for ancestors
and sharing their
research
interests!

Message boards have long been popular, and even
before we took to the
Internet, genealogists had been posting their
interests in periodicals and
probably
on cave walls long before that. (And you think we
have it tough entering our
data! One date entered wrong and you'd have to move
to a new cave and start
over.)

There will likely be another surge in popularity as
Ancestry.com and
RootsWeb.com will soon be updating and improving the
message boards, based
on the
recommendations of community members. Improvements
will allow users to
create
customized views of each thread and select how many
posts are displayed on a
page.
Notifications of posts to your favorite boards will be
sent individually or
via a digest version. New tools will also help with
posts allowing you to
edit
and spell check your messages.

There will also be some behind-the-scenes
improvements with more powerful
searches and spam blockers, that will hopefully spare
us from all those
lovely
pharmaceutical ads.

Besides the enhancements, there will be another boon
for those who use the
message boards regularly in the form of the increased
traffic that will come
with the launch. So if you're a message board user,
now is a good time to
make
sure your e-mail address is up-to-date and your posts
are current. If you
haven't posted to the message boards, it's a perfect
time to start.

So let's take a look at some ways we can leverage the
launch to improve our
chances of finding that long-lost cousin with the
information that could
break
down some of those brick walls.

FINDING YOUR OLD POSTS
If you've posted before, step one will be to locate
your old posts. In the
message board box on the main Community page
(http://www.ancestry.com/s23560/t7579/e20060508011355004304529234/rd.ashx?ATT=
AlBYDQGazq5351M5naEgDH%2ACvPQMzPDAQ4
zTAE) click on Try Our Advanced Search. There, enter
your name in the box
that says Author of Message and click Find. You
should end up with a list of
all
your posts that you can review and update if
necessary.

UPDATE YOUR E-MAIL
One of the great things about message boards is that
your message stays out
there for people who join the search much later. So if
Cousin Myrtis is
finally
bitten by the genealogy bug years from now, she can
find you through your
post of today. The only hitch is that your e-mail
address needs to be
current or
she won't be able to send you all that info from the
family Bible.

As part of the overall updates to the boards, the
"Board Profile" will be
replaced by your Ancestry "My Public Profile." This
means that your member
name
and the e-mail associated with your Ancestry account
will replace the
current
"Post Name" and "Post E-mail" as the author and
contact for your posts. For
this reason it's important that you're e-mail address
is current in the "My
Accounts" section. Also, you may wish to update your
username and e-mail
address to
something that you don't mind being associated with
all of your message
board
posts.

UPDATING POSTS
Now say you put a query out there looking for info on
your great-grandpa
John
Smith. You knew his father's name at the time of the
post (he was another
John Smith), but not the mother and had no clue as to
his place of birth. It
would really help if you could provide some info that
would make him stand
out
from the other bazillion John Smiths, but back in
2003 when you posted it,
that
was all you had.

Now let's say you discovered his mother was named
Hildegard Hemperphistle
and
that he had been born in Posen, Cook County,
Illinois. (I think all
ancestors
with common names should have been required to marry
spouses with unusual
given names and surnames to at least give us a fair
chance at identifying
them!)
How do we get that information into the post so that
when that nice wave of
searchers anxious to try out the updated message
boards comes through,
they'll
be able to find your post? You can do this by replying
to the original post
with your new information added. Not only will this
allow you to be found by
the
Smiths who know about the Hemperphistle-Smith
marriage, but Hemperphistle
cousins will also be able to find you through their
searches as well.

With the launch of the message boards you will be able
to go back and edit
live posts that have not been replied to, adding and
correcting information.

KEYS TO A GOOD POST
Posting effective messages is the key to your
success, and there are certain
elements that should be included in your post.

-- A good subject line. If you post to the Smith list
that you're "Looking
for Smiths," you're not going to stand out. After
all, presumably everyone
on
the list is "looking for Smiths." Give them as much
detail as possible to
help
reel in the right cousins. Something like this:
SMITH, Joseph Z., 1838-1864, Eng>NY>Iowa
If you're not certain of the dates, you can estimate
and use ca. (circa) to
note it.

-- Give them details upfront, listing who you are
looking for, where and
when, so they don't have to read on only to discover
they have the wrong
person
five paragraphs later. Then you can go into more
detail, explaining where
you've
searched, sharing family stories you'd like to
verify, etc.

-- Re-read your post from another perspective. Pretend
you're the answer to
your genealogical prayers coming to respond to your
post. Re-read it and be
sure that you have included all the necessary
information. Since we all know
our
own ancestors so well, it's easy to forget that other
people don't and omit
crucial information.

Sit Back And Wait?
Now that your posts are all in order, you can sit back
and wait for people
to
find you. It's basically free advertising for you. But
I'm guessing that's
not what you'll be doing. If you're like me, you're
going to be off
searching
for ancestors as soon as you're done. We family
historians typically aren't
of
the "sit and wait" variety!

You can learn more about the improved boards at:
http://www.ancestry.com/s23560/t7485/e20060508011355004304529234/rd.ashx?ATT=A
lBYDQGazq5351M5naEgDH%2ACvPQMzPDAQ4zTAE

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SCGS Genealogical Jamboree May 6 2006

2006-04-18T16:18:46-06:00

From: Donie Nelson
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 15:59:32 -0700

On Saturday, May 6, 2006 at 2pm at the SCGS
Genealogical Jamboree in
Burbank, CA at the Burbank Airport Hilton Hotel Donie
Nelson will be
making the
following presentation:

Nuestras Raices (Our Roots): Finding Your Ancestors
in the Hispanic
Southwest

If you have Hispanic ancestry and believe your roots
are buried in the
American Southwest, this presentation offers your
specific trailmarkers,
maps, and waystations to ease your journey. Whether
you are a tenderfoot
or
already blazing trails, her presentation offers you
helpful tools for
digging up your family�s past or discovering new paths
to reach your
destination.

Donnie has been compiling information for Hispanic
genealogists for
years, but Ms nelson
knows there is much more out there. In order to
provide as much
information
as possible, she need your assistance. If you have
any information you
can
send me via email or fax or snail mail on the
following topics, please do
so:

Websites or pages

Historical groups

Genealogical societies

Books

Periodicals

Libraries

Special collections

Do not assume that she already know about any of this
material. She
would
rather have duplicates than omit a valuable reference.
Everyone who
makes a
contribution will be sent a copy of the full list of
Resources that will
be
a handout during her presentation.

She look forward to your assistance,

Donie A. Nelson
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #690
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310/839-3140
310/839-3985 (fax)

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www.adoptionsearching.com

2006-04-17T19:19:51-06:00

Unfortunately, I believe this website http://www.adoptionsearching.com (great for Texas and California) is gonna go for as a pay-for site, in other words, it'll start charging fees if you do over a hundred searches in a day. (What counts as a search - I dunno yet, but I know I didn't do a hundred and I got the following message:"You have exceeded your daily limit ...100 free searches/pages per day ......starting a midnight For 500 per day $9.95 per month For unlimited searches $19.95 per month For institutional subscriptions contact me Contact David Gray Attempts to register with more than one user name may result in deletion"

So Be AWARE! Please. I don't know when this happened. I'm trying to get in contact with David Grey now to find out what is happening to the site, thanks.

Will send out an email when I get new info, thanks.

Dani
dtxn@yahoo.com

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Missouri Online!

2006-04-07T11:42:40-06:00

The Missouri Archives has put up an index to 1910-1955 Missouri death
certificates. They will eventually have images of all certificates, but for
now they have 1900-1920 images. It's kind of slow because it's new and is
getting lots of use.

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/#search

Dani

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Something that affects All us genealogists

2006-03-16T10:59:52-06:00

Information Series on Genealogy%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
This article is another of a series that I will
present to the group for
information, education, or to enlighten.

List Administrator
_____________________________________________________

The LDS church has just announced a new program that
will affect all
genealogists. See

http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,40-1-3384-9,00.html

Unlocking the Vault: Conversion to Digital Records is
Progressing
By Brittany Karford, Church Magazines
Members may not have to wonder what lies behind the
14-ton vault door at
the Church's Granite Mountain Vault Records (GMVR)
facility for much
longer. In as little as 10 years, much of its
genealogical collection may
be at their fingertips.
The billions of names preserved on microfilmed records
at the vault are
being converted to digital images that can eventually
be viewed online at
FamilySearch.org and ultimately searched in and linked
to an online
index. The process of digitizing the microfilm is now
faster than ever
through a �bleeding edge� technology system called
FamilySearch�
Scanning.
�I call it unlocking the vault,� says Heath Nielson,
the program�s lead
software engineer. �I cannot wait for the day when
accessibility to these
records becomes available to all.�
When that day comes, the records will be available to
everyone, both
Latter-day Saints and the public��God's children
everywhere��according to
the project team. And for those researching family
history under either
title, it will mean no more microfilm, and no more
eyes strained from
looking at film under dim light.
The vision, says Brent Thompson, director of records
preservation, is
that in the future members in Lima, Peru, who now wait
up to six or eight
weeks for microfilm, will be able to go to a family
history center or
anywhere with Internet access and look at records with
the click of a
button.
It is a giant first step toward putting most of the
family history
collection of the GMRV online. Online images and
indexes of birth,
marriage, and death records from all over the world
may altogether change
how family history work is done. Currently, only a
minority of members
pursue family history work, but the accessibility
enabled through
FamilySearch Scanning will make it simple for anyone
with Internet access
to get involved.
Brother Thompson believes they will, though at first
he didn�t dream
digitizing the collection would be possible.
�I couldn't imagine it possible in my lifetime,� he
says. �I couldn't
imagine it possible in my children�s lifetime.�
At the rate they were going prior to the FamilySearch
Scanning
technology, it was estimated that it would take 120
years to convert
applicable films to digital. That same projection is
now less than 30
years, perhaps sooner with planned expansions of
additional scanners. The
team that couldn't fathom living to see the end result
will now be the
team that will someday complete the digitizing
process.
So how does it work? One vault worker loads rolls of
film into a pod of
scanners and presses �Go�. The scanner then takes one
comprehensive video
picture and transfers that continuous file to another
computer, where an
application analyzes the contrast of the ribbon for
quality and splits
each frame into individual JPEGs (a digital file of an
image). To finish,
a good pair of eyes reviews the job and processes the
newly created
JPEGs. The digital images are then readied for use by
the Church's online
indexing program, where volunteers over time will help
extract the birth,
marriage, and death information from the images to
create free searchable
indexes online (like the 1880 U.S., 1880 Canada, and
1881 British
Censuses currently found at FamilySearch.org).
This is a great improvement over the process used just
a little more than
a year ago, where one person had to be present
throughout the entire
process, manually scrutinizing each frame. Through
three to four feet of
film, one technician would adjust the light and
contrast with the film
density changes, watching every image come across the
screen and cutting
it out. �We thought, �How can we apply computer
technology to save these
poor people's eyes?� � explains Derek Dobson, product
manager. �And how
can we more quickly convert these microfilms to
digital images so people
can access them more readily on the Internet?�
Enter Heath Nielson and a team of engineers. Not only
does the computer
system they developed speed the process up, but by
taking the frames on a
continuous file, it retains the contextual information
of each slide as a
piece of a whole.
�In the computer, it�s not piecemeal. You can look at
a single frame next
to its neighbors, and it tells you something about
it,� Brother Nielson
says. Also, with the manual process there was no way
of knowing if they
had missed an image, something that is not a factor
with the continuous
file.
Though the technology is not entirely novel, their
ability to act and the
Church's ability to execute and implement the
technology for its intended
purposes makes them pioneers in the field. Yet setting
the program into
motion has not been without its glitches.
�It's something I still feel fervently about,� Brother
Nielson says. �I
knew that if this was something we needed to do, there
would be a way
provided.� And there was. In the hard and frustrating
times, he said they
would find just what mechanism they needed and receive
help from specific
individuals just when they needed it�one step at a
time.
On just four scanners, they have tripled output�yet
they�ve still only
completed four percent of the targeted films at the
vault, and more films
are coming in. This year alone, they expect to acquire
an additional
28,000, says Wayne Crosby, general manager of GMVR.
They have a lot of
work to do.
The good news is they are two to three years away from
completing the
transition from microfilm cameras to digital cameras.
When this
transition is complete, only the existing microfilm
collection will need
to be converted to digital.
Film and microfiche will continue to be stored in the
vault, even after
their digital conversion. �The polyester film lasts
300 to 500 years and
will continue to be used for long-term preservation,�
Brother Crosby
explains, noting that the digitizing of the records is
to make them more
accessible to family history researchers, not to make
preservation
easier.
And so it's back into the long, chilly corridors deep
within Granite
Mountain for not only the polyester films, but the new
digital records as
well. There they will reside in one of six 190-foot
long rooms. About 1
million rolls of film are held in each vault,
maintained at a constant 55
degrees and 30 percent humidity, ideal for
preservation.
>From the doorway, the row after row of monstrous file
cabinets creates
the impression of having fallen into Alice and
Wonderland and stepped
into a strange office where filing cabinets stretch
from floor to
ceiling.
But the vault where the digital images are stored is
for the most part
empty (One DVD can hold up to 4 digitized microfilms).
A few short
cabinets hold what's been converted so far, and the
expansiveness of the
room whispers of a future when it will be filled. When
that day comes,
most members will be able to access the digital images
of the films
anywhere they have Internet access�from their homes or
local Family
History Center�through the Church�s genealogical Web
site,
http://www.familysearch.org; and the staff at GMVR
won't be bundling in
their coats as often to retrieve fiche and film.
�Think how easy that will be,� says Paul Nauta, public
relations manager
for the Family and Church History Department. �In the
future individuals
anywhere in the world through the Internet will be
able to search the
majority of the GMRV�s film collection and the
billions of names
currently hidden in them�all from the convenience of
their homes or
family history center.�
�Won't it be nice if in between naps and playing with
my children, I can
jump on the Internet and do family history research,�
says Brother
Nielson.
�This technology is the answer to our hopes, our
dreams, and our
prayers,� Brother Thompson adds. He smiles, looking
out one of the main
office windows�or rather, a giant half-dome portal
that opens the granite
slab to the north-facing alpine slope across the
canyon. About to step
out of the paper-and-film world that has shaped his
profession, he
reflects on the mountainside.
�What a view,� he says, �and what a great resource
this is for the
Church. What an inspiration it was to build this
facility in a solid wall
of granite.�

---------------------------------
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