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NASA’S “OH, NO-- DID I DO THAT?” MOMENT

2009-07-18T14:53:00.001-05:00

Somebody at NASA deserves a VERY thorough chewing out-- what else can you do to the person who decided that a good way to save money was to record over NASA’s official video of the first moon landing:

LINK

UNITED STATES ROLL OF HONOR

2009-07-18T14:47:00.002-05:00

Civil War buffs and Civil War ancestor seekers may wish to take a look at the subscription site FamilyRelatives.com-- they've just added the complete U.S. Roll of Honor to the long list of items available full-text on their site:

“One of the largest and most complete Rolls of Honor for the US Civil War has been released by Familyrelatives.com. It is the first time that all 27 volumes have been made available online: over 276,000 Roll of Honor records.

The "Names of the Soldiers Who Died in the Defence of the American Union - Interred in the National Cemeteries" were recorded by the Quartermaster General's Office in 1866. In each case the original place of interment, the soldiers' name, rank, company, regiment, date of death, section of cemetery and the number of the grave are all detailed.

The Roll reminds us that the Civil War was a bitter conflict and one of the bloodiest and costliest in terms of the toll it took on both sides with an estimated 620,000 military deaths, two thirds of which were caused by disease (as well as an undetermined number of civilian casualties).

The Union Army consisted of a large number of immigrants including many ethnic groups. A million soldiers were native born Americans of British ancestry; half a million were of German ancestry; 210,000 were African Americans, of whom half were freed men living in the north, while the remainder were slaves or had escaped slavery. A similar number were of Irish, Canadian, English, French, Dutch, or Scandinavian descent, as well as Italian, Jewish, Mexican, Polish, Native Americans, and other nationalities numbering 2.2 million who fought for the Union.

The collection includes the Final Disposition: four additional volumes listing the original places of burial from which some of the bodies of Deceased Union Soldiers and Prisoners of War have been removed and the various National Cemeteries in which they were finally reinterred.

This collection together with 650 million other historic records is available to search online to all members and visitors by way of an annual subscription of only US$50.00 or £30.00 at http://www.familyrelatives.com/.”

BIBLIOMANIACS ASSEMBLE!

2009-07-18T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here are 100 online communities where you can connect with other people who are just as obsessed with books as you are:

LINK

PROPOSED CHANGES AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES (UK)

2009-07-18T14:42:00.001-05:00

Noticed on the ENG-MANCHESTER mailing list:

“These changes are being proposed so that a 10% reduction in TNA costs can be made by March 2010 to meet operating costs.

Impact on public services at Kew:

* We are proposing to move to five-day opening by closing the reading rooms on Mondays
* We will introduce charges for use of the public car park
* We will remove selected large microfilm and microfiche records series from the reading rooms
* We will streamline copying services with the introduction of a new online request service (we will no longer operate Digital Express and estimating services)
* We will focus advice and expertise where and when it is needed, for example not providing expert staff between 17:00 and 19:00 when there is minimal demand

You can take a closer look at these proposed changes to The National Archives here.

You can provide feedback on the changes here.

ITUNES U

2009-07-17T09:52:00.002-05:00

From their website:

"Today’s students expect constant access to information—in the classroom and beyond. Which is why more and more faculty are using iTunes U to distribute digital lessons to their students. And now, with the 3.0 software update for iPhone and iPod touch, iTunes U is directly accessible over both cellular and Wi-Fi networks through the iTunes Store."

LINK

Note: Maybe you won't make use of it, but your children/grandchildren probably will!

DYNASTREE

2009-07-17T09:46:00.003-05:00

A new genie site that may prove of interest:

Press Release

Hamburg, July 15 - The family network dynastree.com recently launched a new version, including a Turkish language version, and also a new feature-- the extended search. It is now possible to use far more parameters to search for possible relatives and ancestors. The new parameters not only include more fields for names (birth name, second surname), but also fields for place of birth, death, and residence. Moreover, both year of birth and year of death can now be used as search parameters, either as exact matches, or allowing deviations from the year specified. Premium users can now use the new function to its full extent, and everyone can test it to see whether or not their search parameters did return any results. This upgrade allows users to find matches even if only a limited amount of data is known, it greatly improves the possibility to make full use of dynastree's database of more than 90 million profiles from Europe, Russia, and the Americas.

Profile of dynastree.com

According to experts, dynastree.com and its international language versions have been among the fastest growing social networks worldwide in the last two years. By now, more than nine million families have created their tree at dynastree.com, and more than 15.000 new family trees are added each day. The venture capital corporations Neuhaus Partners and Hasso Plattner (co-founder of SAP) Ventures recognized the young start-up’s potential early and support dynastree.com as investors. dynastree.com was founded by the experienced internet entrepreneurs Daniel Grözinger and Sven Schmidt.

Press Contact:

Nils Schnelle
OSN Online Social Networking GmbH
Heimhuder Straße 72
20148 Hamburg
Germany
UK +44 20 7193 2208
US +1 201 399 2207
Email: nils.schnelle@dynastree.com
Web: http://www.dynastree.com/
Blog: http://www.dynastree.com/blog

REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA’S AMERICAN CASUALTIES

2009-07-17T09:44:00.002-05:00

There were 12, including three American POWs recently added to the official list of casualties:

LINK

Note: They were being detained about a mile from ground zero...

DO YOU NEED TRIP INSURANCE?

2009-07-17T08:59:00.004-05:00

It can be a good idea-- especially for once-in-a-lifetime vacations. Just don’t get it from the company you booked your tour with-- if they go belly up, you lose your trip and your trip insurance:

LINK

PENTAGON WEB RADIO

2009-07-15T17:10:00.002-05:00

Listen to official DoD podcasts:

LINK

JULY 4TH PHOTOS

2009-07-15T17:07:00.002-05:00

It's never too late for July 4th photos, and here are some great ones courtesy of USA.gov:

LINK

LEARN WEB 2.0 THE EASY WAY

2009-07-15T17:03:00.004-05:00

Well, easier than some other choices, certainly… JISC NetSkills has posted the first five of eight planned animations to help get you up to speed on RSS feeds, podcasting, microblogging, social media, and collaborative writing:

LINK

ANGEL ISLAND

2009-07-14T12:16:00.000-05:00

Prologue Magazine article on the San Francisco Immigration Station:

LINK

LEADING THE WAY

2009-07-14T12:14:00.001-05:00

Prologue Magazine article on the U.S. Army Indian Scouts:

LINK

THE ONLINE BEHAVIOR OF WOMEN

2009-07-14T12:12:00.001-05:00

How do women of various ages / geographic areas / economic brackets / social situations use the Web? An extensive recent survey has some answers:

LINK

THE GENERAL’S VOICE

2009-07-14T12:06:00.003-05:00

Want to know what General George S. Patton really sounded like? Here’s your chance:

LINK

PAPERS PAST

2009-07-10T10:04:00.000-05:00

If you’ve got Kiwi ancestors / relatives, you’ll love Papers Past:

"Papers Past contains more than one million pages of digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals. The collection covers the years 1839 to 1932 and includes 52 publications from all regions of New Zealand."

LINK

THIS DECLARATION MADE SOMEONE HAPPY

2009-07-10T09:59:00.002-05:00

Several times a year somebody comes to my library with a “real” Declaration of Independence. Each time so far, it has actually been one of the uncountable reprintings of the Declaration that is artificially aged to make it look older than it really is (brushing tea onto a certain kind of paper is one way to do it). But that doesn’t mean that there are no more “real” Declarations out there: one was found recently in the National Archives-- the archives in Kew, England, that is:

LINK

PREVENTING ID THEFT

2009-07-10T09:57:00.000-05:00

The best ways to protect against ID theft (according to Dick Eastman) are to pay your bills online and to shred any mail you get that contains sensitive information like Social Security or account numbers:

LINK

NPRC GETS THE GREEN LIGHT

2009-07-10T09:54:00.003-05:00

The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) has locked in funding that should allow construction to begin on its new Dunn Road (north St. Louis County) facility by August 15th:

LINK

NOTE: NPRC holds 20th century American military records, and many federal civilian personnel records.

TWO NEW BLOGS

2009-07-09T11:22:00.002-05:00

Two new blogs will prove of interest to many Missouri genealogists:

The State Library of Massachusetts now has a blog (available here) where you will discover information about library collections, acquisitions news, plus images of materials from their shelves. Recent posts include ones on historic maps of Chatham; preservation work being done on a printed pedigree chart and seals from the Vassall family; and one on essential New England books.

The Rhode Island Historical Society’s blog started earlier this year. It provides information about the society’s physical locations and hours, plus information about their collections. Recent posts include a poem by James Franklin, brother of Benjamin and the first printer in Rhode Island; a 1754 pamphlet concerning the elimination of debtor’s prisons; and the first Jewish calendar printed in America.

PSST! GOOGLE NEWS YOU NEED TO HEAR…

2009-07-09T11:19:00.001-05:00

You know that persistent rumor that Google has been working on an operating system? Ladies and gentlemen, it’s NOT a rumor:

LINK

NOTE: Like most Google projects, this OS is to be open source...

AN ID THEFT STORY WITH A (SOMEWHAT) HAPPY ENDING

2009-07-09T11:13:00.002-05:00

A woman asked her cousin in the Library of Congress Human Resources Department to furnish her with some employee names, employment info, addresses, and Social Security numbers. He did-- in exchange for cocaine. She went on a spending spree with her new forged identities-- until the law caught up with her and she finally had to face the music:

LINK

NOTE: The cousin in Human Resources only got probation. Is it obvious to everybody except our lawmakers and judges that drunk drivers and ID thieves need to face stiff penalties if we are ever going to make these crimes “go away”?

MARINES AND NAVY ARE EXCEEDING RETENTION GOALS

2009-07-09T11:10:00.001-05:00

Apparently the prospect of service in a war zone isn’t hurting the Marines or the Navy. Enough current Marines and sailors are re-upping that those services have been able to eliminate re-enlistment bonuses in many specialties:

LINK

HISTORIC AERIALS

2009-07-08T17:20:00.001-05:00

Historic (beginning in the 1930s for most places) and contemporary aerial photos of most U.S. locations. You can view a reasonably good image online, with option to purchase a higher-quality image if desired:

LINK

ROBOTS AND THE RULES OF WAR

2009-07-08T17:18:00.000-05:00

Can robots be taught to behave ethically in combat situations? One researcher certainly thinks that they can:

LINK