The following information was written by Rootsmagic, Inc.

Free Preview of Leading Genealogy Software Now Available to the Public

SPRINGVILLE, Utah. — March 4, 2009 — RootsMagic, Inc. today announced RootsMagic 4 public beta, the latest version of the award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history easy and enjoyable. During the public beta period, all are invited to download and experience the software, free of charge.

Impressive New Features

“RootsMagic 4 is the biggest release in our 20-year history of making genealogy software,” said Bruce Buzbee, president.  “We’ve updated RootsMagic to work with the latest genealogical technologies available today, while staying true to our mission to make family history easy, accessible, and fun.”

RootsMagic 4 boasts an impressive list of new features including integrated web search, improved SourceWizard for citing sources, sharing events among multiple persons, creating pre-defined groups of persons, person and place mapping, recording DNA tests, and improved navigation and data entry. RootsMagic 4 is also one of the only desktop genealogy programs certified to work with “New FamilySearch”.

Freeing Your Data

“A common request that we hear from people is that they don’t want their data to be trapped in their computer,” said Michael Booth, vice-president of development. “One of the most popular features in RootsMagic 3 is our ‘Shareable CD’ which puts your data and pictures onto a CD or DVD along with a special copy of RootsMagic. You can then give the discs to family and friends and they don’t have to buy or install anything. It’s all there on the disc.”

 “We’ve taken that a step further in RootsMagic 4,” explains Booth. “One unique and exciting new feature is ‘RootsMagic To-Go’. It allows you to install RootsMagic onto a USB drive and transfer data between it and your computer. This gives you the freedom to take RootsMagic and your data wherever you go- to work, on vacation, to the library- anywhere.”

Free and Available Now

RootsMagic 4 beta is available now for free at http://www.rootsmagic.com/preview. “We’re so excited about this new release, we wanted to give everyone a risk-free option to try it for themselves,” said Buzbee.  Each person who wishes to participate will be given a registration key which will allow them to download and experience the software for the duration of the public beta period.

Users of other genealogy software products will find it easy to experiment with RootsMagic 4 using their own data. RootsMagic can directly import data from PAF, Family Tree Maker (through 2006), Family Origins, and Legacy Family Tree. It can also read and write data using the popular GEDCOM format.

The public beta also gives users the chance to give feedback and suggestions to improve the software. “Customer feedback is essential to us. All of the changes and improvements in RootsMagic 4 are in direct response to needs and desires expressed by our users,” said Booth. Buzbee added, “We’ve already received invaluable comments and suggestions from the early testers and we’re looking forward to hearing from the general public.”

About RootsMagic, Inc.

For over 20 years, RootsMagic, Inc. has been creating computer software with a special purpose- to unite families. One of our earliest products- the popular “Family Origins” software, introduced thousands of people to the joy and excitement of family history.

That tradition continues today with “RootsMagic”, our award-winning genealogy software which makes researching, organizing, and sharing your family history fun and easy. “Personal Historian” will help you easily write and preserve your life stories. “Family Reunion Organizer” takes the headaches out of planning those important get-togethers. And “Family Atlas” creates beautiful and educational geographic maps of your family history.

For more information, visit www.rootsmagic.com .

The National Park Service for cemetery interpretation has awarded a 250,000 dollar grant to the City of Nacogdoches, Texas to develop a model cemetery-interpretation program for the Oak Grove and Zion Hill cemeteries in Nacogdoches.  Once the program is complete genealogists will be able to access information online  about the people buried there.

More information about the “Preserve America” grant can be found here.

Have you read the Great Migration Newsletter?

The New England Historic Genealogical Society is offering free access to the most recent version of their Great Migration Newsletter.

Although the Great Migration Newsletter is now in its eighteenth year, we find many NEHGS members are not familiar with it. To remedy this situation, we are providing free access to the January-March 2009 issue.

The Newsletter complements the individual Great Migration sketches, and addresses the broad issues that are key to understanding the lives and times of New England’s first immigrants. The Newsletter is able to go beyond the scope of the individual sketches in the Great Migration books to examine the settlement of early New England towns; migration patterns; seventeenth-century passenger lists; church records; land records; and much more.

Please consider supporting the Great Migration Study Project by subscribing to the print or online version of the Newsletter.

A professionally printed copy of the Newsletter will be delivered to your home four times during the year, at a cost of $20 for a one-year subscription or $36 for a two-year subscription.

Online subscriptions to the Great Migration Newsletter are also available, at a cost of $10 for a one-year subscription or $18 for a two-year subscription. Online subscribers will be able to access the four issues of Volume 18, one posted each quarter (beginning in January 2009), and the Great Migration Newsletter Online Archive, which contains volumes 11 through 17, plus bonus sketches not yet available in print.

SUBSCRIBE NOW
To subscribe, please visit www.GreatMigration.org or call Member Services at 1-888-296-3447.

Families of Ancient New Haven is an eight-volume work created by Donald Lines Jacobus between 1923 and 1932. These volumes were originally published as New Haven Genealogical Magazine, which was the predecessor of The American Genealogist. The complete work contains over 65,000 names of early Connecticut settlers and their descendents.

As of October 1, 2008, this database contains all eight volumes of the work.

Learn more

by Peter D. Murphy

The Diocese of Saint John is the seventh oldest Roman Catholic diocese in Canada. Established in 1842, the Diocese originally embraced the entire province of New Brunswick and the Madawaska region of the adjacent State of Maine. Currently, the Diocese of Saint John serves New Brunswick’s eight predominantly English-speaking counties: Saint John, Kings, Queens, Sunbury, York, Charlotte, Carleton and Northumberland.

Largely as a result of the explosion of interest in genealogy at the end of the 1970s, Bishop Arthur J. Gilbert established the Diocesan Archives as a publicly-accessible research facility. Peter D. Murphy served as the first Diocesan Archivist. The Archives—currently housed in the Diocesan Services Building in Uptown Saint John—house most of the extant PRE-1900 sacramental records for the parishes and regions currently served by the Diocese. Except for records of interment, all POST-1900 records must be obtained directly from the parish or mission in which the sacrament was administered. The oldest extant sacramental records are those of Bartibogue, on the Miramichi, which begin in 1801. Baptismal and marriage records for the Saint John area begin in 1812, for the Fredericton and Charlotte County areas in 1827, the Woodstock region in 1842, and the missions of Kings County in 1845.

Read full article

This week, the New England Historic Genealogical Society is releasing the eleventh volume of The Essex Antiquarian, “An illustrated … magazine devoted to the biography, genealogy, history, and antiquities of Essex County, Massachusetts,” which was published and edited by Sidney Perley between 1897 and 1909. The journal was published monthly from January 1897 to June 1901, and then quarterly from July 1901 to October 1909. Each yearly volume contains 200-220 pages consisting of genealogical articles and a variety of photographs, maps, illustrations, gravestone inscriptions, all pertaining to Essex County.  The thirteen original volumes of The Essex Antiquarian are available in our Research Library, call number F72.E7 E74 1897-1909.

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/Database/essex_antiquarian/

The New England Historic Genealogical Society has released a new database, Vital Records of East Granby, Connecticut, 1737-1886.

 “The town of East Granby was incorporated June 2, 1858, being set off from the towns of Granby and Windsor Locks. This section had previously borne that name for a considerable time before its incorporation. Its boundaries, except for a small addition on the east side, were practically the same as those of the Turkey Hills Ecclesiastical Society. This society, comprising the north-east quarter of the town of Simsbury, was established in 1736 by action of the General Assembly. The following year the Assembly added to it on the east side a small section of the town of Windsor, which from its width was often referred to as “the half mile.” In 1786 a portion of Windsor including this society was incorporated as the town of Granby, and in 1852 a portion of Windsor including this society was incorporated as the town of Windsor Locks. The name of the ecclesiastical society was changed in 1895 to conform with that of the town.”

This database contains 524 births and baptisms, 846 marriages, and 3,578 deaths.  The images of the original book pages may be viewed from the search results page.

This volume is also available in our Boston research library, call number F104.E1 E15 1947.

News that the last German World War I veteran has died has no closed a chapter on the Great War. The handful of veterans from World War I with the average age of 107-110 years old is rather small. I have met many individuals over the years with American and German connections to the First World War.

The veteran who has recently died is the late Dr. Erich Kästner (March 10, 1900 -January 1, 2008). This report comes from his family who announced it in Hannoversche Allgemeine newspaper.

Click to read the article on his passing as recently reported this month.

Genealogically yours,

David Allen Lambert

NEHGS ADDS MORE THAN 3.2 MILLION SEARCHABLE NAMES ONLINENew databases provide access to nearly 400 years of information.

New England Historic Genealogical Society is thrilled to announce the addition of more than 3.2 million names to its searchable online databases during 2007 to help its more than 20,000 members around the country with their family history research. NEHGS has more than 100 volunteers around the country who help scan and digitize parts of the vast collection housed at NEHGS’ 7-story research library located at 99 Newbury Street in Boston. Because so many of NEHGS’ members are not in New England, offering access to so many important databases and information is critical to the NEHGS family.

NEHGS’ Web site, www.NewEnglandAncestors.org, contains the most complete set of electronically searchable pre-1910 Massachusetts vital records available anywhere. Some of the new databases now available online include Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850, early New York probate records, Connecticut vital records, Massachusetts census records (1855-1865), and New York calendar of wills, 1636-1826. In addition to creating new searchable databases, the NEHGS team is also conducting a project to add downloadable scans of original page images to the Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850 database. This project was begun in January 2007 and is approximately 50% complete, with 41,700 page images added so far. This project will be completed by the end of 2008.

Among the 485,000 records added to this VR collection are the pre-1850 vital records of Plymouth, Yarmouth, Middleborough, Falmouth, Boston, Dorchester, Dedham, Watertown, Truro, Hanover, and Worcester. With the addition of 231,000 pre-1835 New York State probate abstracts from the William A. Eardeley collection, also NEHGS offers the largest electronically searchable set of New York probate records. We are also expanding our searchable collection of Connecticut vital records with the publication of pre-1850 data for the towns of New Haven, Mansfield, and Woodbury, CT. NEHGS will be adding significantly more Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, and Maine records in 2008. Another 2007 addition to our website is the content of the NEHGS Register for the years 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. This extends our collection of searchable Registers to 159 volumes, starting with the first volume, from 1847.

Genealogically yours,

David Allen Lambert

1. No man is truly well-educated unless he learns to spell his name at least three different ways within the same document. I resolve to give the appearance of being extremely well-educated in the coming year.

2. I resolve to see to it that all of my children will have the same names that my ancestors have used for six generations in a row.

3. My age is no one’s business but my own. I hereby resolve to never list the same age or birth year twice on any document.

4. I resolve to have each of my children baptized in a different church — either in a different faith or in a different parish. Every third child will not be baptized at all, or will be baptized by an itinerant minister who keeps no records.

5. I resolve to move to a new town, new county, or new state at least once every 10 years — just before those pesky enumerators come around asking silly questions.

6. I will make every attempt to reside in counties and towns where no vital records are maintained or where the courthouse burns down every few years.

7. I resolve to join an obscure religious cult that does not believe in record keeping or in participating in military service.

8. When the tax collector comes to my door, I’ll loan him my pen, which has been dipped in rapidly fading blue ink.

9. I resolve that if my beloved wife Mary should die, I will marry another Mary.

10. I resolve not to make a will. Who needs to spend money on a lawyer.

11. I resolve to not clutter up the good farm pasture with headstones, that will just get broken or fade with time anyway.

12. I resolve to protect my family and friends privacy, by giving false names and places for events.

13. I resolve to never give the correct accounts of misdeeds in the family, so when Uncle Lem shot that guy and was tried for murder, my kids will be told he stole a cow.

14. I resolve to never trim the family cemetery of brush and tangle weed, to keep out any one doing that silly Genealogical work.

15. I resolve to always alternate my kid’s and wife’s first and middle names when the census taker comes around, just to give him practice with his spelling.

16. I resolve to come from Ireland (where there are no records, or, if there are, they can only be examined by visiting the exact village, pleading with the local clergy (who is hostile to anyone not of his belief which of course you are) and/or handing over a fee equal to or exceeding your yearly income for one hour’s research which may not find anything.)

17. I resolve that not only shall I NOT die in my country of birth, but that nor shall my children (yea verily) unto the sixth generation.

18. I resolve that I shall call my children by odd names which the enumerator shall spell incorrectly.

19. I resolve that I shall be absent on the night of the census.

20. I resolve that if unable to be absent on census night I shall endeavor to be enumerated twice.

21. I resolve that when I die my children/wife are instructed to give the wrong details for my death certificate.

22. I resolve that I and most of my family shall die suddenly just before death certifications started to be used, in a parish where easy access to the records ceased the previous year.

Thought I would add a little light genealogical humor to your reading. Thanks to David Lambert (an NEHGS member – no direct relation) for sending this to me.

Genealogicall yours,

David Allen Lambert