President Proposes Tax Break for Genealogists

A Genealogue News Flash [What's That?]

In his State of the Union address this evening, President Bush proposed changes to the tax code that would benefit the nation's family historians.

"These people," said the President, "work hard. It's hard work genealogic. . .alizing, and it's time that we recognize the sacrifices they make every day."

If approved by Congress, Bush's plan would make genealogical expenses such as database subscriptions and microfilm rental fees tax-deductible, and would allow genealogists to claim their deceased ancestors as dependents.

At one point in the speech, President Bush gestured toward a woman seated beside the First Lady.

"Up there in the gallery is a lady named Millie Newman. She's a genealogist from Clarkdale, Arizona. Millie wrote me a letter . . . said she spends $2,000 a year researching her family history. One day her daughter—five years old—comes up to her and asks why they only eat two meals a day. Millie had to tell her daughter they couldn't afford breakfast because of the high price of photocopies. That's just not right, and it shouldn't happen in America."

The plan was immediately attacked by Democrats, who accused the President of kowtowing to lobbyists in the genealogy industry.

"It's the same old story," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). "This is just like when he gave Ancestry.com a no-bid contract to rebuild the 1890 census."

Top Ten Worst Ways to Celebrate Black History Month

10. Invite Maya Angelou over for karaoke.

9. Watch reruns of Good Times and take a drink every time J.J. says "Dyn-o-mite!"

8. Translate the "I Have a Dream" speech into Klingonese.

7. Rent all the movies starring that famous African-American actress Charlize Theron.

6. Rename the path from your couch to the refrigerator "Martin Luther King Boulevard."

5. Erect a monument to Bryant Gumbel's ego.

4. Search out your closest childhood friend, and then spit in her water like Kizzy did in Roots.

3. Follow George Washington Carver's lead and build an iPod using nothing but peanuts.

2. Make a donation to NASCAR—you know, the civil rights organization.

1. Have your kids play "Underground Railroad" in the crawlspace.

[tagged: genealogy]

Dick Cheney's Long-Lost Cousin

From The Washington (D.C.) Post:

Utah Town Has Question About President: 'What's Not to Like?'

By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 31, 2006; A01

RANDOLPH, Utah -- To get to the place where they like George W. Bush more than any other place in America, you fly west for a long time from Washington, then you drive north for a long time from Salt Lake City, and then you pull into Gator's Drive Inn, where the customer at the front of the line is ordering a patty melt.

[snip]

"Hey, Aaron," [restaurant owner Pat] Orton says, and in comes a young man who is 16, and who is considered one of Rich County's three African Americans even though he considers himself a mix of a white mother and black father.

He spells his last name: "C-H-E-N-E-Y."

"Yeah," he says. "Distant relatives." His grandmother did the genealogy and explained the connection. He has no idea if it's true, he says -- but even if it is, the reason he likes Bush has less to do with that than with his mother's decision to come to Randolph when he was 8 years old.

"I enjoy pushing cows, chasing girls and shooting guns," he says of who he has become here.

Also: "I'm a Republican."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

98-Year-Old Man Turns 100 Next Month

From The Bismarck (N. D.) Tribune:

Bismarck man finds he's a little older than he thought

The Associated Press - Monday, January 30, 2006

BISMARCK, N.D. — Leo Goll Sr. found out he's older than he thought.

Goll was set to celebrate his 99th birthday next month. But his niece recently stumbled upon family information that verified that Goll will be 100 on Feb. 19.

"My niece got a hold of the Bible my folks had," Goll said. "All the children were listed, and it said I was born in 1906 instead of 1907."

[snip]

"It doesn't feel that good to find out you're a year older," Goll said. "I would've much rather found out I was a year younger."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Good Things Come in Small Packages

From The (Madison, Wisc.) Capital Times of Jan. 31, 2006:

When cremains remain unclaimed

By Mary Bergin

[snip]

State law requires a funeral home to keep cremains for 60 days; they then can be placed in a grave, niche, crypt or disposed of "in any other lawful manner." The crematory, not the funeral home, is legally obligated to keep a record of who is cremated, when and to whom the cremains are delivered.

So there is nothing, outside of conscience and reputation, to stop a funeral home from flushing the unclaimed human ashes that it receives. But both are big considerations.

"To us, these are people, even though they are in small containers," [Cress Funeral and Cremation Service president Bill] Cress says. "I don't care if some were homeless, or considered despicable."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Sorry If I'm Being Impolitic

Think you're related to Millard Fillmore? Then Political Family Tree might be the site for you.

I say "might be" because I'm not willing to fork over $29.95 to find out. For that subscription price, the site offers genealogies and biographies of "all U.S. Presidents, all U.S. Vice Presidents, and all Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution." They're beginning to add pedigrees of colonial and state governors, and promise "hundreds of other genealogies."

The family trees and biographies are given as PDF files, so you'll need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. Based on the samples provided, the subscription price seems steep for the information offered (it goes up to $34.95 after Presidents' Day). Only paternal lines are traced "back to the boat," and even then with scant detail. Descending lines are not traced. No sources are cited, listed, or hinted at.

The pedigrees are useful in showing the genetic relationships that existed between the leading colonial families, but for anyone hoping to flesh out a family history will prove insufficient. Most of these families are well documented in print (families with illustrious members generally are), so a trip to a library with a good genealogy collection should be first on the to-do list.

Put "Subscribe to Political Family Tree" further down on the list—right below "Clean the gutters."

[tagged: genealogy]

Dead Air

Dave at OakvilleBlackWalnut blogged today about a newspaper article mentioning "that obituaries are read over the air on a rural radio station" in Missouri.

This led me to KCRW—a Public Radio station in Santa Monica, California, that broadcasts Final Curtain once a month.

Interesting people die every day -- some we've heard of, some we haven't. And every newspaper has an obituary page to chronicle these passings. There's been nothing like the Obit Page on radio or TV -- until now.

KCRW (89.9 FM and KCRW.com) launches what's believed to be a broadcast first: Final Curtain, a monthly half-hour obituary program. It will air the first Tuesday of every month.

Produced and hosted by Perri Chasin and Forrest Murray, Final Curtain will focus on the one thing that unites all living beings -- our demise.

Final Curtain will, of course, deal with people of fame, infamy and notoriety. But it will also feature lesser-knowns whose stories are no less interesting. And it will examine the traditions of death in different cultures.

You can listen to a simulcast at the time of broadcast, or to a podcast anytime (the most recently archived show is from Aug. 2, 2005). They even sell copies on CD—the perfect gift for the person in your life whom everyone else finds really creepy.

[tagged: genealogy]

Genealogy is Best Done on Television

From 13WHAM-TV (of Rochester, N. Y.), posted Jan. 30, 2005:

Oprah Winfrey, Chris Tucker Trace Roots on PBS

If ever there was a time to tape American Idol and watch something else, this Wednesday is it.

On second thought, maybe it’s best that the PBS two-part series African American Lives (airing 9 to 11 p.m. Feb. 1 and 8) is stored on your TiVo as a permanent reference guide, as host Dr. Henry Louis Gates meticulously explains the process of tracing one’s family heritage back to its roots in Africa using as examples eight prominent black Americans, including Oprah Winfrey and Bishop T.D. Jakes.

[snip]

“It’s one thing to hear a lecture about the double helix and Watson and Crick. It’s another thing learning that if you swab yourself 20 times on each cheek, in three weeks, somebody will send you back a card saying, ‘Your ancestor came from Nigeria, and more specifically from the Ebo people,’” says Gates of a new program offering buyers of a DNA kit a chance to mail in their swabs and pinpoint their origin.

“Who wants dusty ol’ research in dusty ol’ archives? If you could produce your lineage back to slavery, back to the American Revolution, wouldn’t that be more compelling? I think that that’s what we’ve been able to achieve.”

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

I don't know... I kind of enjoy "dusty ol’ research in dusty ol’ archives."

[tagged: genealogy]

Thanks a Lot, Dad

From the Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News of Jan. 30, 2006:

Family related to ‘nobody’ fills scroll

By James M. Beidler
Lebanon Daily News

[snip]

Mike Shaak’s challenges aren’t just the many spelling variants and difficult-to-read records.

When he began researching his roots, he asked his father for some help — specifically, “To who are we related?”

To which [h]is father replied: “Nobody.”

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Is Earwax the Key to Genealogy?

From LiveScience:

Is Your Earwax Wet or Dry?

By Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 29 January 2006

Do you have dry, flaky earwax or the gooey, stinky type? The answer is partly in your heritage.

A new study reveals that the gene responsible for the drier type originated in an ancient Northeastern Asian population.

Today, 80 to 95 percent of East Asians have dry earwax, whereas the wet variety is abundant in people of African and European ancestry (97 to 100 percent).

Populations in Southern Asia, the Pacific Islands, Central Asia, Asia Minor, and Native North Americans and Inuit of Asian ancestry, fall in the middle with dry wax frequencies ranging from 30 to 50 percent.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Top Ten Signs You Picked a Bad Genetic Testing Company

10. They got your sex wrong.

9. Your results were handwritten on the back of a Burger King placemat.

8. They misspelled "DNA" four different ways on their website.

7. They had you extract your genetic sample with an ice-cream scoop.

6. They share office space with a Vietnamese chicken farmer with a nasty cough.

5. Their technicians all attend the same high school.

4. For $10 extra, they'll prove you're descended from Jesus.

3. They only advertise in the back of Hustler magazine.

2. They offered you two clones for the price of one.

1. According to your results, you're more closely related to your cocker spaniel than to your husband.

[tagged: genealogy]

Premarital Sex Leaves Great-Grandson 'Delighted'

From Newsweek:

DNA Testing: In Our Blood

It is connecting lost cousins and giving families surprising glimpses into their pasts. Now scientists are using it to answer the oldest question of all: where did we come from?

By Claudia Kalb
Newsweek

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - Brian Hamman had always wondered: what was up with his great-grandfather Lester? Hamman, an avid genealogist, could trace his patrilineal line back to 19th-century rural Indiana, but there was a glitch in the family records. Great-Grandpa Lester, the documents showed, was born before his parents were married. So was Lester really a Hamman? Was Brian? Three years ago DNA tests confirmed the lineage and a simple family mystery was solved: Lester's parents had hooked up before they walked down the aisle on July 25, 1898. Lester was indeed a Hamman, and so is Brian. "I'm delighted," he says.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

It's Easy to Be an ID Thief ... or a Genealogist

From the (Glasgow, Scotland) Sunday Herald of Jan. 29, 2006:

It’s easy to get your hands on a birth certificate ... even the First Minister’s

Holes in the system

YOU don’t have to get into bed with eastern European gangsters to start your career as an ID thief. In fact, all you have to do to get the ball rolling is pop into your local office for registering births, deaths and marriages and start culling easily available personal documents.

It took the Sunday Herald about half and hour and less than £50 to get hold of the birth certificates of two dead children ... and Jack McConnell, Scotland’s First Minister. With these documents, the Sunday Herald could have begun hijacking the identities of the dead children and started to assume the identity of the First Minister, wreaking havoc in his financial life.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Meet Meta-Search at MyHeritage.com

The folks at MyHeritage.com are allowing sneak peeks of their new genealogy meta-search tool. Their celebrity face-recognition database is getting all the press (see today's Washington Post), but it's the site's search capabilities that will keep genealogists interested.

Before you get started, you'll have to download a Java applet (it took a couple of tries on my PC with WinXP running Firefox). You can then execute your search, making either a simple or advanced search.

With Simple Search, you can enter only first and last name. With Advanced Search, you can narrow down your results using date and place of birth and death, and sex. You can also specify the class of records to search (birth records, criminal records, immigration, etc.), or which of 431 databases to query (Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, GenCircles, RootsWeb, etc.).

As with other genealogy search engines, MyHeritage Search allows you to search by the exact spelling of a surname, or with Soundex enabled. What sets it apart is Megadex—a new, proprietary alternative to Soundex. With Megadex selected, you'll be offered 30 variants of the surname, of which you'll be asked to choose as many as ten before proceeding.

Search results are given as a list of websites in no discernible order (they can be resorted by database name or number of matches). A preview image of each website is shown, with the number of matches and a link to the relevant site. Some have an "Expand" option, which calls up an expanded summary of the search results.

The site still has some bugs to work out—when I went back to try a second surname with Megadex enabled, I was greeted by a blank screen instead of a list of variants. Nevertheless, MyHeritage Search does offer a valuable alternative to the Googlers among us. And with the introduction of its genealogy face-recognition tools and a free family-tree application just around the corner, MyHeritage.com is certainly a bookmark-worthy site.

Update: I neglected to cite some "coming attractions" Hagit Katzenelson of MyHeritage.com mentioned in an email today:

We’re also planning to launch a few other search-related features very soon.

The first will allow registered members to save and annotate their searches. Each search can be saved, sites already visited will be marked, and users can annotate each set of matches, i.e. for each spelling variant in each database. Another feature is to display, per surname, which other members (per each member’s agreement) have searched for that name. This will connect between people searching for the same names. We are also working on a feature that automatically re-runs your saved searches and lets you know if new matches have been found.

[tagged: genealogy]

Genealogize Your Way to Clearer Skin

Here's a guy who budgets his time wisely. He's managed to combine his interests in genealogy and "acne birth control treatment."

(Seen on Google Blog Search)

[tagged: genealogy]

So Much for the Nuclear Family

If you're wondering how to fit someone into your family tree who doesn't really belong—like Grandpa's "housekeeper" who never seems to do any vacuuming—check out the Star Wars Family Tree at Amazon.com. You'll learn that even Wookiees and droids have a place in the modern intergalactic family.

[tagged: genealogy]

Beware of the Stroppy Silver-Haired Ladies

From the Hampstead and Highgate (U.K.) Express:

Stroppy? Who do you think you’re kidding?

editorial@hamhigh.co.uk
27 January 2006
Andrew Brightwell

HIGHGATE Cemetery volunteers have hit back at claims they are a brigade of stroppy silver-haired ladies.

The army of volunteers donned helmets and brandished brooms to prove their point after they were mocked in the 2006 Lonely Planet Guide to London.

Jean Pateman, founder of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery, said: "To paraphrase Churchill, 'Some Mums, some army'."

"When these carping critics show me they can raise nearly £6 million over 30 years and create a thriving business out of a graveyard abandoned by its owners and Camden Council then they will be worth listening to."

[snip]

Baron Jozsef von Treuenburg claims he was stopped from visiting the grave of his ancestor Frederick Biscoe Basevi at the Cemetery in Swains Lane 10 years ago.

Baron von Treuenburg, who is 74 and lives in Fortis Green, said: "A lady told me that I can't come to the grave unless I was named on the will."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Top Ten Least Used GEDCOM Fields

10. Beer Preference

9. Secret Hiding Place

8. Gender Reassignment

7. Kindergarten Expulsion

6. First Grateful Dead Show

5. Presidential Pardon

4. Open Marriage Declared

3. Exorcism

2. Vasectomy Reversal

1. Burial Depth

[tagged: genealogy]

The 'John Smith' of China

From chinaview.cn:

100,000 Chinese share one name "Wang Tao"

www.chinaview.cn 2006-01-26

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 100,000 Chinese people, about the population of a small city, share the same name -- "Wang Tao", probably the most common name in China.

These Wang Taos include both men and women, commoners and celebrities. The popular ones consist of a top ping pong player, at least two footballers, noted painters, photographers and an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Author is a Great-Great Liar

From the Bangor (Me.) Daily News:

Record may prove man's status in baseball history

Thursday, January 26, 2006 - Bangor Daily News

[snip]

Although [Ed] Rice wrote "Baseball's First Indian-Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian" to make a case for Sockalexis [as the first American Indian to play major league baseball], he did not have solid proof that the Penobscot Indian was the first. He believes he has that now in the form of the 1919 death certificate of James Madison Toy, who is currently recognized as the first American Indian to play professionally.

[snip]

Rice found he could get a copy of Toy's death certificate, but only if he was related to Toy. He marked on the form that he was kin and submitted it electronically to the records department. When an official called a few hours later to find out how he was related to Toy, Rice lied and said he was a great-great cousin in Maine.

"I just took a deep breath and thought, if there's a record, God, why aren't I entitled to get it out there into the public domain?" Rice said. "I don't see that I'm doing harm other than I'm trying to get my hands on a record once and for all."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Tenth Time's a Charm

From The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:

Recite incantation, get 10 wives

January 26, 2006 - 12:30AM

A middle-aged Tokyo man found to be living with 10 younger women said he attracted them by reciting an incantation that came to him in a dream.

[snip]

"I had a dream that told me I would become attractive to women if I recited a particular incantation," Kyodo news agency quoted the man as saying.

A rapid series of weddings and divorces left the man with a large group of ex-wives, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who shared his surname and continued to live with him.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Underground and Overbuilt

From The Welwyn & Hatfield (U.K.) Times:

Family graves built over

25 January 2006
EDITORIAL - whtimes@archant.co.uk

A WOMAN placed red roses on a trio of family graves for the last time before the builders moved in.

Construction work at St Mary's Church, Welwyn, will mean an emotional time for Susan Cooke, as three of her ancestors' graves will be built over.

[snip]

"They said they will put some kind of poles over the graves. The building will be on top of those. I've said what am I supposed to do if I bring my family? The graves will be under the building."

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Genealogist Makes Shocking Discovery

A Genealogue Exclusive [What's That?]

Glen Kimball has been researching his family tree for only a few weeks, but already has made a discovery that will rock the genealogical world.

"There's something wrong with the censuses," he says from his home in Alexandria, Virginia. "There's something terribly, terribly wrong with the censuses."

Last week, Kimball found his great-grandfather in the 1900, 1910, and 1920 federal censuses. But the ages given for his ancestor didn't add up.

"He was three years old in 1900, twelve in 1910, and twenty-four in 1920. That's just not possible."

Concerned that other genealogists might be led astray by faulty census data, Kimball immediately contacted the National Archives and notified them of the problem.

"We were very glad to hear from Glen," says RoseAnn Polensky, who runs the Historical Census Department at the Archives. "We would never knowingly release false information to the public. This must have just slipped by our fact-checkers."

On Monday, the Archives announced a recall of all United States census microfilm, which includes records dating from 1790 to 1930. Companies like Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest Online have pledged to take down any census records found to be erroneous.

Polensky notes that Glen Kimball's action has sparked an internal review at the Archives.

"Could other bad information have gotten through? We don't know yet. Until we can look at every document in our possession and check its veracity, we won't be allowing the public access to anything.

"The first document to be released will be the Declaration of Independence," adds Polensky, "just as soon as we verify that all men are created equal."

[tagged: genealogy]

You Can Check Out Anytime You Like...

From Tennessean.com, posted Jan. 23, 2006:

Sprawling communities swallow family cemeteries

Historians fear area's past may disappear

By CLAY CAREY
Staff Writer

BRENTWOOD — The Daniel family cemetery holds many stories. Bill Daniel knows them all.

[snip]

But one story that many of the cemetery's visitors who don't go by the last name Daniel find more intriguing is the tale of how the decades-old little graveyard that once sat on the edge of a plum orchard ended up only paces away from the Hilton Suites in Brentwood.

"The question I get asked a lot of times is how did your family get buried in the lawn of the Hilton," Daniel, 75, said. "The real question is, how'd the Hilton end up in my family's graveyard?"

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

A Swede Deal

Seen on craigslist:

Are you a Midwesterner who's only recently discovered your Scandinavian heritage and, in order to frustrate your lonely and otherwise unfulfilled existence, picked up the study of your ancestors' language to connect with your past? Have you progressed beyond level 2? Do you want $20 to renew your subscription on geneology.com for the month of Jan?

[snip]

I will send you a tape, and all you have to do is transcribe the lyrics of the songs on it for me. No translation needed; I just need the lyrics in Swedish. And in return you receive a rather tame compensation ($20) but, considering that all you have to do is listen to music for 40 mins, will probably be the easiest $20 ever earned in the history of Swedish knowledge (finding lost wallets on the streets of Stockholm doesn't count).

[Read the whole ad]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Was Abraham Lincoln Unbalanced?

From the St. Paul Pioneer (Minn.) Press of Jan. 23, 2006:

Lincoln kin help medical research
Results will allow screening for ataxia risk

By Jeremy Olson
Pioneer Press

The proud lineage of President Abraham Lincoln has helped researchers at the University of Minnesota identify a genetic origin of ataxia, a disease that robs people of mobility and coordination.

[snip]

The research simply put a name to something Lincoln descendants already knew: They were more prone to a mysterious ailment. One branch of the family had previously called it the "dreaded Lincoln disease," said Laurie Crary, a 50-year-old who is Lincoln's sixth cousin. Crary, of Prescott, Ariz., isn't as affected as her father, but she and her sister experience vertigo and lose their sense of balance in the dark.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Genealogy Leads to Addiction

From The Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette:

Diligence pays off for Super Bowl ticket winner

Saturday, January 21, 2006
By Pam Shebest
pshebest@kalamazoogazette.com 388-2730

Don't invite Ted Dorman to any Super Bowl parties this year. He's going to be there in person, thanks to his addiction to online sweepstakes.

Dorman, 61, is the national grand prize winner of the Doritos brand "Crunch Your Way to the Super Bowl" online sweepstakes.

[snip]

[After retiring, Dorman] started working on his family tree, then started researching his wife's family tree.

"I was spending a lot of time on the computer," he said. "There are games and stuff on there, so I started messing around with them. One thing leads to another and now I spend about one and one-half hours entering contests --- but only the ones that are free."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

A New Approach to Matchmaking

A Genealogue Exclusive [What's That?]

Matchmaker Randy Haines has figured out a new way to link up single men and women. Instead of asking them a long list of questions to deduce and compare their personality traits, Haines simply asks for their last names.

"The key to my approach is simplicity," Haines tells The Genealogue. "Who wants to fill out a questionnaire when love is on his mind?"

Once Haines has a client's surname, he feeds it into a special computer program he calls "Foundex," which generates a code consisting of a letter followed by three numbers. Any man and woman sharing the same Foundex code are meant for each another.

"I've had many successes," says Haines. "One couple even got married. Just last week Cindy Collins and Bill Collings tied the knot in Vegas. They sent me pictures."

Not all of his clients are as happy as Bill and Cindy. Some have threatened to sue after being set up with their own siblings or first-cousins. One man was set up with his ex-wife. Haines acknowledges that mistakes do happen.

"Foundex isn't perfect, but neither is love. And love doesn't come with a coupon for free genetic counseling."