Not Enough Characters at Your Reunion?

TamaGenerations.com (Warning: obnoxious music) lets kids combine their two favorite activities: learning about family history and supporting the Japanese toy-making industry.

It's time to start thinking about planning your summer family reunion and what better way to do it than by researching your family tree so you know who to invite! Celebrating the new Familitchi V5, the newest version of the highly popular Tamagotchi Connection toy, www.TamaGenerations.com provides kids the chance to create family trees of everyone's favorite Tamagotchi characters as well as collect hidden family heirlooms. With help from partners Family Tree Magazine and FamilyReunion.com, kids can create a personalized family tree online and learn fun tips on planning their very own family reunion party. But the fun doesn't end there! Finding 20 family heirlooms will give one lucky kid the chance to win an Ultimate Tamagotchi Family Reunion for 25 family members with a special appearance from the special and fun Tamagotchi characters. [Link]

If "special and fun Tamagotchi characters" show up at my family reunion, they better know how to perform a keg stand. Oh, and some of my older relatives might demand an apology for Pearl Harbor.

Created From the Cremated

I've blogged before about pencils made from cremains. A company in Canada has taken it one step further.

Each sketch has a little something of the subject in it -- namely a tablespoon-sized portion of their cremated ashes.

Honor Industries takes the ashes to create a pencil, which an artist then uses to draw a lifelike portrait of the deceased based on a selected photograph.

The portrait is encased in glass and framed. Customers can choose to have the pencil itself included in the display. [Link]

I'm Not Ready to Go Steady

I'm in the middle of a year-long transcription project for my Maine Genealogy website that requires that I take hundreds of digital photos of typewritten records on microfilm. My method is as follows:

1. Hold camera against edge of microfilm reader while focusing on image.
2. Squeeze shutter release without moving camera.
3. Take second photo of same image because I probably moved camera.

Nine times out of ten, one of the two photos is usable. Unfortunately, I can only take about 100 photographs (of 50 pages of records) before my hands get shaky and the photos get fuzzy.

Too bad the GSC Associates Microfilm Camera Mount won't work on either model of microfilm reader I use. For just $30.95, it seems like an affordable alternative to per-page printer fees. As for me, I'll stick to my method, and maybe drink fewer cans of Red Bull before visiting the archives.

The Pre-Order of the Day

Family Tree Maker 2008 is available for pre-order right now for the low, low price of $29.95 (this offer expires at the end of the month). You can watch a tutorial hosted by our old friend Megan Smolenyak² by clicking links on the product page, or download a beta version of the software if you want to try it before you buy it.

Keep Grandma on the Porch

Someone has finally figured out how to combine wind chimes with cremation urns.

LifeSong Urns also plans to offer in the near future, twin vaulted urns as memorials for husbands and wives and other life relationships. These twin vaulted urns may also be used for individuals with the second vault used as a time capsule to hold small keepsakes. Another innovation from LifeSong Urns is the optional "biography or genealogy" plaque. This plaque tells the story of your loved ones life on earth and further personalizes your LifeSong Wind Chime Urn. [Link]

CC Your Ancestors

Here's the perfect way to carry your ancestors with you while you research their lives: Nadine Jarvis's Carbon Copies.

Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.

[via Neatorama]

Pencil Not Included

Even if you don't own a laptop, you can still bring your delete key to the archives.

[via Gizmodo]

A Hot Date You'll Never Forget

Remember that story about the genealogist who forgot his wife's birthday? Now there's an easy way to remember the dates that really matter: The Remember Ring.

The Remember Ring™ utilizes patent pending Hot Spot™ technology to deliver a reminder that it's "That time of the year again!"

24 hours before your special day, the Hot Spot™ on the interior surface of your Remember Ring™ will warm to 120º F for approximately 10 seconds, and continue to warm up every hour, on the hour, all day long!

Hot enough to cause discomfort but not hot enough to burn-the Remember Ring™ is impossible to ignore! [Link, via Gizmodo]

Playing Cards Can Lead to Reproduction

Here's another reason to buy Fyodor Soloview's Six Generations card game: it could save your family from extinction.

The governments of European nations have been worried about progressive declines in populations, which will face them with serious shortage of labor. Nobody had an answer before as to how to secure an average fertility rate of over 2.1 babies per woman, which required human reproduction.

To fix this dilemma, Soloview said, governments, schools and parents should educate children in family genealogy. At home, children must observe the family tree with several generations of their ancestors. To help the parents, Fyodor Soloview, a father of four children, designed the family history card game Six Generations, which looks like a deck of playing cards.

"You just let you children play Six Generations, and they will figure it out by themselves, what their own role in securing their family dynasty is," the inventor said. [Link]

And Please, No Tippling While Toppling

If you're like me, you live in constant fear that a headstone will tip over and crush you like a bug. That's why I always carry a ToppleTester from Pearson Panke Ltd.

ToppleTester is the most widely used topple-testing device in Europe, and has saved countless Britons from the embarrassment of being squished. Simply hold the ToppleTester against an unstable monument, and wait for it to topple. The load read-out will tell you how much force was necessary to destroy the only evidence of your ancestor's existence.

Warning: The ToppleTester is not intended for use on cows or other large farm animals.

Younique Dollz

A line of "multi-racial heritage dolls" will be unveiled at the American International Toy Fair this week in New York. Younique Gemz will encourage multi-racial children to take pride in their ancestries, while at the same teaching them how to misspell two common English words.

Also coming is the Younique Gemz Scrapbook, whose purpose is to "give children and parents the opportunity to share their personal heritage, helping to build a strong sense of self within the child."

The front of the scrapbook will have a special section for mapping out a family history. The entire scrapbook will be created with all people groups in mind and will display the many unique aspects of various cultures, traditions, music and foods. [Link]

This will give the child something to do after she's stripped her doll naked, pulled off its head, and flushed its shoes down the toilet.

[tagged: genealogy]

Death Database Released on DVD, Panned by Critics as 'Derivative'

From U.S. Newswire:

Social Security Administration's Death Master File Official Version Now Available on DVD

SPRINGFIELD, Va., Dec. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Official Version of the Social Security Administration Death Master File is now available on DVD. The Death Master File is the complete and official SSA database of persons reported to SSA as being deceased. The new DVD version is available from the National Technical Information Service.

The SSA Death Master File is used by leading government, financial, investigative, credit reporting, medical research and other industries to verify identity as well as to prevent fraud and comply with the USA Patriot Act. The new DVD version delivers the complete database on one DVD disc, rather than 37 magnetic cartridges or 4 CD-ROM. The DVD will save backup storage space as well as save time uploading the file.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

To buy your own copy for only $6,900, visit the NTIS website. The DVD comes without a commentary track, and don't expect to find any Easter Eggs.

One-Eyed Mothers-in-Law are Wild

From PRNewsWire:

New Playing Cards 'Six Generations' Are Invented Unexpectedly

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The monarchic structure of standard playing cards with King, Queen and Jack is now breaking apart by an Alaskan game designer who invented a new "democratic" deck with a 64-person family in six generations.

When Ted Soloview, a graphic designer from Alaska was searching his genealogy with the roots of Russian, German, and Ukrainian ancestors, he caught an idea that anybody's triangle-looking family tree could be used to create a new card game.

After a year of research and choosing a universal match for parents and children, husbands and wives, lifestyle and clothing, names and countries for the European family of immigrants to America, his idea has generated an innovative card game, "Six Generations."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

These cards may also be used to play "Strip Genealogy," though this is not advised. Six Generations is available at Amazon.com.

This Space for Rent

Jimmy Kavanagh wrote asking if I would plug the JMK Genealogy Gift Store—which I believe I've just done.

I can't personally vouch for the merchandise, but the designs (like the one shown at right) appear to be well executed. And it's always good to help a fellow genealogist support his addiction.

Future requests for plugs will be considered in the order I receive them, and approval may depend on the incentives offered. I could really use a wide-screen TV and Red Sox tickets (box seats only, please).

Get 'em while they last

Seen on eBay:

I See Dead People Genealogy T-Shirt XL



This t-shirt is for the genealogy nut. On the front is a graveyard and the words "I see dead people" ON BACK is a tree with the words 'genealogist' written across in large letters.

I have more of these shirts, so let me know if you need more than one. I think I have about eight of them left.