Kathy Turton to attend IGHR @ Samford

Katherine M. Turton is the inaugural recipient of The Jean Thomason Scholarship. The scholarship is named for and in honor of Jean Thomason, who directed the Institute from 1997-2007. The scholarship covers the cost of tuition and is awarded annually to anyone currently employed at a library. Ms. Turton is a Genealogy Librarian at The Columbus Public Library in Columbus, Georgia. She has been in this position since January 2007, after having worked 10 years as a Reference Librarian. She teaches introductory genealogical classes to patrons and will proceed to a more advanced level after her attendance at IGHR.

Vatican letter directs bishops to keep parish records from Mormons

By Chaz Muth
In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah.

An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.The order came in light of "grave reservations" expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation's letter said.

Read more here

African American Research at The Maryland State Archives

The Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Program seeks to preserve and promote the vast universe of experiences that have shaped the lives of Maryland's African American population. From the day that Mathias de Sousa and Francisco landed in St. Mary's county aboard the Ark and the Dove in 1634, Black Marylanders have made significant contributions to both the state and nation in the political, economic, agricultural, legal, and domestic arenas. Despite what often seemed like insurmountable odds, Marylanders of Color have adapted, evolved, and prevailed. The Maryland State Archives' Study of the Legacy of Slavery Staff invites researchers to explore all of these elements and more within its numerous source documents, exhibits and interactive online presentations.

The Civil Rights Digital Library

Athens, Ga., April 29, 2008 - The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) is the most ambitious and comprehensive initiative to date to deliver educational content on the Civil Rights Movement via the Web.

The CRDL promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement trough its three principal components: 1) a digital video archive delivering 30 hours of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement, 2) a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Movement by aggregating metadata from more than 75 libraries and allied organizations from across the nation, and 3) instructional materials to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.

The centerpiece of the site is a collection of more than 30 hours of historical news film held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. These moving images—about 450 clips--cover a broad range of key civil rights events, including the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas (1957); the Atlanta Temple bombing (1958); Atlanta sit-ins (1960); Freedom Rides (1961); desegregation of the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech (1961); the Albany Movement (1961-1962); desegregation of Ole Miss (1962) and University of Alabama (1963); and Americus Movement (1963, 1965); Birmingham demonstrations (1963); among many other topics.

The video archive covers both national figures and local leaders. There is more than two hours of film related to Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King’s role in the Albany Movement is documented extensively, including clips of speeches at mass meetings, his arrest by local police, press conferences, and his visit to a pool hall to urge local African Americans to adopt non-violence in achieving change in Albany. Among the clips is coverage of King’s reaction to President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his funeral in 1968.

In addition to the news film, the digital library includes related collections from 75 libraries, archives, and museums across the nation. Most are original documentation of the period, such as oral histories, letters, diaries, FBI files, and photographs.

A partnership with the online New Georgia Encyclopedia is a key component, providing concise, authoritative articles on events and individuals associated with the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, supplemented by images and multi-media files.

The CRDL initiative includes a special site for teachers, called "Freedom on Film" (currently in development) that relates civil rights stories from nine Georgia towns and cities, along with related news film, discussion questions, lesson plans, and related readings. Freedom on Film is being developed by University of Georgia faculty and students, along with scholars from other institutions.

The Civil Rights Digital Library receives financial support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The CRDL will continue to grow through its partnerships with allied organizations across the U.S.

Visit the Civil Rights Digital Library: http://crdl.usg.edu

Contacts: Dr. P. Toby Graham, Director, Digital Library of Georgia, University of Georgia, tgraham@uga.edu, 706.583.0213

Ruta Abolins, Director, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia, abolins@uga.edu, 706.542.4757

Dr. Barbara McCaskill, Professor, English Dept., University of Georgia, bmccaski@uga.edu, 706.542.2250

Cyber Grave Robbing...

Federal prosecutors this week charged a Southern California woman with aggravated identity theft and other crimes for allegedly using a popular genealogy research website to locate people who had recently died, and then taking over their credit cards.

Tracy June Kirkland, 42, allegedly used Rootsweb.com to find the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of people who, shall we say, had no further need for their consumer credit lines...

Read more Here.

Family Tree Legends Software Now Free!

Family Tree Legends version 5.0 is a powerful and sophisticated genealogy program designed to make it easy for you to collect, display, and organize information about your family history. Whether it’s notes, medical facts, pictures, or multimedia files, Family Tree Legends provides you with a single tool to capture every bit of information about the history of your family.

Create a wide variety of beautiful & professional, heirloom quality charts, reports, and books. Create a CD or DVD of your tree for your family members that allows them view data, create and print unlimited charts, reports, & books. Supports importing of gedcom and family tree maker files.

Search ancestor records online via the Family Tree Legends records collection and Gencircles.

"This software is a must-try."

Georgia Official and Statistical Register

The Digital Library of Georgia is pleased to announce a new Web resource: Georgia Official and Statistical Register.

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/statregister

The Georgia Official and Statistical Register was published from 1923-1990 by the Georgia Archives. Considered an important reference work for historical research, the Register covers Georgia’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, providing biographical sketches of elected and other state officials. Georgia members of U.S. Congress and federal judges are included, as are county officials and regents of the university system. The Register contains election returns, provides basic reference data on Georgia counties, and covers Georgia miscellany, such as the state flag, state flower, state song, rosters of Georgia governors, and legal holidays.

The Georgia Official and Statistical Register site is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia as a part of the Georgia Government Publications program.

The Register is full-text searchable, and is available in JPG, PDF and DjVu versions.
Related links:

Digital Library of Georgia: http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu Georgia Archives: http://sos.georgia.gov/archives Georgia Government Publications: http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/ggp

Northern Ireland Research

Welcome to the new PRONI website which was launched in January 2008. PRONI aims to identify, preserve and make available Northern Ireland's unique archival heritage and community memory.
All the information that was available on our old site has been rearranged into a new structure, plus lots of new information has been added! We hope you find this site user friendly, helpful and informative.

The archive of the Ulster Unionist Council, held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), contains just under half a million original signatures and addresses of the men who, on 28 September 1912, signed the Ulster Covenant, and of the women who signed the parallel Declaration. In total, the Covenant was signed by 237,368 men, and the Declaration by 234,046 women.

Previously the Covenant was difficult and very time-consuming to access and, consequently, it was under-used. PRONI has now improved access by digitising all the signatures, in recognition that the on-line database should make a significant contribution to both genealogical research and cultural tourism.

Freeholders' records are lists of people entitled to vote, or of people who voted, at elections. A freeholder was a man who owned his land outright (in fee) or who held it by lease which could be for one or more lives (for example, his own life or for the lives of other people named in the lease). From 1727 to 1793 only Protestants with a freehold worth at least 40 shillings a year were legally permitted to vote. Between 1793 and 1829 both Protestants and Catholics with 40 shilling freeholds could vote, but in 1829 the franchise level was increased to 10 pounds, so 40 shilling freeholders were no longer allowed to vote. This last measure increased the influence of landlords by effectively confining membership of Parliament to the propertied or monied classes.

This website is the first phase of a project to index and digitise all the early wills that were proved in the District Probate Registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry from 1858 to c.1900. It provides a fully searchable index to the will calendar entries for these 3 District Probate Registries with the facility to view the entire will calendar entry for each successful search. The second phase will link the index entries to both the will calendar entries and the copy wills on the History of Probate page.

Land and Mineral Use Records

The Land and Mineral Use Records web site is an Internet mapping application within NILS' GeoCommunicator. It allows users to search, locate, and map the BLM's land and mineral use authorizations and mining claims on public lands throughout the United States. Land and mineral use authorizations include such things as oil and gas leases, rights-of-way, mineral leasing, coal leasing, unpatented mining claims, withdrawals, classifications, and land and mineral title.
The data for this system comes from the National Integrated Land System (NILS). The BLM maintains most of the land and mineral use authorizations and unpatented mining claims in a text-based system called "Legacy Rehost 2000" or, the "LR2000" system. The LR2000 system records tens of thousands of federal actions affecting public land or public mineral estate of the United States and hundreds of thousands of mining claims located on public lands. The BLM is processing the land and mineral use authorizations and unpatented mining claims from the LR2000 into NILS on a daily basis. The data from NILS is exported to NILS' GeoCommunicator every two-three weeks for the distribution of the data to the public. GeoCommunicator also provides links to serial register page and geographic reports from LR2000, Range Allotment reports from the Range Authorization and Billing System, and master title plats from many BLM state offices.

National Maps

The National Map is an online, interactive map service. You can view The National Map by using your Web browser (no special software or download required). The National Map is a consistent framework for geographic knowledge needed by the Nation. It provides public access to high-quality, geospatial data and information from multiple partners to help support decisionmaking by resource managers and the public. The National Map is the product of a consortium of Federal, State, and local partners who provide geospatial data to enhance America's ability to access, integrate, and apply geospatial data at global, national, and local scales. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is committed to meeting the Nation's needs for current base geographic data and maps. Our vision is that, by working with partners, we will ensure that the Nation has access to current, accurate, and nationally consistent digital data and topographic maps derived from those data.

The National Map's stated goals are to provide the following:
High-resolution digital orthorectified imagery from aerial photographs or satellite imagery that will provide some of the feature information now symbolized on topographic maps.

High-resolution surface elevation data including bathymetry to derive contours for primary series topographic maps and to support Earth surface modeling and the production of accurate orthorectified imagery.

Vector feature data for hydrography (rivers and water bodies), transportation (roads, railways, and waterways), structures, government unit boundaries, and publicly owned lands boundaries.

Geographic names for physical and cultural features to support the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and other names such as for highways and streets.

Land cover data that classify the land surface into categories such as open water and high-density residential.