Prompted by an article in the Deseret News, quoting Curt Witcher, Betty Malesky wrote an interesting column this week. She speaks of a “genealogical dark ages.” Now how could that be? With all this technology-related data coming available you’d think we we in “genealogical heaven.” However, according to Witcher, and Malesky it’s not so…
I see [...]
Avery Anderson will turn 2 in August. With any luck, she will have a Social Security number by then.
The toddler’s slow crawl through a thicket of red tape began last year when her father, Clay Anderson, went to file the family’s 2008 income taxes. To obtain a $1,000 child tax credit, he needed Avery’s Social [...]
Indiana’s state archives, original and irreplaceable paperwork documenting the people’s business since before statehood, got rained on a few weeks ago - for the third time this year.
A fourth time seems inevitable.
Among the most treasured documents are the state constitution; the earliest state Supreme Court cases; John Dillinger’s prison records; and the contract, [...]
This just in from Liz Stookesberry Myers:
Assembly Bill 130 will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee very soon. It was introduced by Kevin Jeffries (Republican ) of the Temecula area. The Bill was presented at the request of the Recorder Association of California. They want to be able to handle [...]
A letter written in 1824, by President Andrew Jackson, prior to his presidency, has been recovered and returned to the New York State State Library, from which it was stolen.
The letter was for sale in an on-line auction site for $35,000. UT Professor Tom Coens spotted the item online, recognized it, and reported [...]
The Warren, Rhode Island, Town Hall vault, contains birth records, death records, land evidence forms, and marriage licenses and at one time the town was in jeopardy of losing 300-years worth of information to deterioration. That is changing. Following is an excerpt from an interesting article about the efforts to save the town [...]
Some days it seems like we lose another freedom every hour or so. So much for the Baby and the Bath Water…
This is just in from my friend, Joy Rich:
Here’s an instance of HIPAA being misused by the New York City Department of Health.
As of April 8th, only “authorized personnel of the Department or [...]
The New York Times is reporting that Moody’s Investors Service has assigned a negative outlook to the creditworthiness of all local governments in the United States. Folks, this is first time this has ever happened.
Now what’s that got to do with genealogy? I believe that it may have a lot to do with our [...]
I’ve blogged twice about the destruction in Italy several days back. Once soon after the earthquake happened, with a photo of the purported State Archives, and later with further updates.
In a phone conversation this morning with Anthony Alioto, with Italianlaw.net, in San Francisco, he informed me that the picture referencing the flattened building in L’Aquila, [...]
As I was writing the headline for this blog, I had to wonder at what point I might have to start referring to the “depression.” I shudder to think of all the devastation that will surely come about as the result of what’s still to come.
The Ohio Historical Society receives 60 to 70 [...]
The following excerpt is from an extensive article written by Ginger McGuire, and published in the Chico News & Review. For the last 15 years, Butte County Clerk-Recorder Candace Grubbs has tried to get the county to establish a hall of records for its thousands of historic documents. They are currently stored in several sites [...]
The following was forwarded to me by Joy Rich:
Texas State Archivist Chris La Plante, Secretary of the Society of State Archivists, asks that this be forwarded to as many genelogical list servs as possible and to contact your representatives.
Now’s the time to step up for PAHR.
Learn More about PAHR
Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D, NY) and [...]
Alerted by blogs already posted this morning (Eastman, Robbins-Midkiff), I looked at the controversy over the photographing of headstones by genealogist David Shannon at the Old Union Christian Church Cemetery in Lexington, Kentucky. Not only did Mr. Shannon takes pictures of the headstones, he had the audacity to post them on a FREE [...]
The Cologne city Archives collapsed last week - and I blogged about the tragic event at that time. Since then, my friend, Donna Potter Phillips, has been corresponding with a friend (Cookie), who lives near Frankfurt. The following is an email sent to Donna from Cookie. The “animation” she speaks of can be found at [...]
UPDATE: Read about just how bad this disaster was in the March 4, 2009 article titled “Archive Collapse Disaster for Historians” in Spiegel Online.
The Cologne City Archive in Germany collapsed today. It seems that all the employees are safe. However a married couple who lived in the adjacent building are missing. The collapse brought down [...]
