The following was received today from Sue Kaufman, with the Texas State Genealogical Society: We are writing to you as a member of the genealogical community of Texas to alert you to a bill being considered by the Texas Legislature. We should have sent this alert out to you sooner. We’ve been so consumed with [...]
The following excerpt is from an article posted in the February 21, 2013 edition of newstimes.com: Blaming overzealous members of the media as well as those seeking to disprove that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School occurred, three state lawmakers representing Newtown testified in Hartford on Wednesday in support of a bill that would [...]
The following February 7, 2013 press release is from the NARA Press site: Barry Landau, Jason Savedoff, and their Conspiracy to Steal History Washington, D.C.: On Thursday, March 7, 2013, at noon, the National Archives hosts a discussion on the theft of America’s national treasures – and ways to prevent such thefts in the future. [...]
The following excerpt is from the October 3, 2012 edition of Clayton News Daily. ATLANTA — Annette McEachin said her ancestors would be “turning over in their graves” if they knew that Georgia planned to close its archives to public access next month. #McEachin, from Marietta, said she is descended from Austrians who came to [...]
The following excerpt is from an article by Bruce Parham, published in the April 10, 2012 edition of Juneauempire.com: Many Alaskans may not have heard about the dire condition of Alaska State Library, Archives, and Museums in Juneau. The state’s treasures of records, historical photographs, and museum artifacts are at great risk in the present [...]
The following is from the March 7, 2012 edition of the Baltimore Sun: Document thief Barry Landau may have sold more of the national treasures he stole from museums — including the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, where his scheme unraveled — than previously thought, according to the National Archives inspector general, who said Wednesday [...]
Pennsylvania Genealogists – take note… My friend, Jim Beidler, wrote the following information about the potential watering down of the open records legislation now underway in Pennsylania. The following is just an excerpt of his article in the November 27, 2011 edition of the Lebanon Daily News. Just when advocates for the reform of vital [...]
The 2010 flooding in Pakistan killed many people, wiped out 1.5 million homes and caused 10 billion in direct and indirect losses. However, it also destroyed records – many of them of genealogical importance. Following is a teaser from an article in the July 29, 2011 edition of the BBC News. The River Kabul, which [...]
Prior to reading about the loss of records in this weekend’s Deseret News, I hadn’t even considered the loss of records when the World Trade Center towers fell. The massive loss of lives overshadowed everything else. However, many important records were lost, some of which had potential for family history research. The following teaser is [...]
The following excerpt is from an article in the April 25, 2011 edition of the Burlington Free Press. MONTPELIER — It’s so easy to get certified copies of birth certificates in Vermont that at least one state no longer will accept them as identification for fear of identity theft. Legislation expected to pass the House [...]
Srinagar, Mar 4: The Archives Department in Kashmir houses some of the vital documents about Kashmir’s history, culture and heritage. But for the Jammu and Kashmir Government, they seem to be worth nothing, not even preservation. A cursory look at Kashmir Repository, located inside the dilapidated building of the Archives Department in Old Secretariat here, [...]
People spied on by Hungary’s communist-era secret police will have the right to destroy their surveillance reports under a government proposal historians say would damage the country’s ability to acknowledge its past. The regime’s network of informants once kept as many as 1.6 million people under close scrutiny, with relatives and neighbors informing on each [...]
I’m afraid this is the kind of story that makes my blood boil. Memorial plaques with names of deceased veterans were stolen, probably with the object of selling them for scrap. The plaques held many names, and at this point it looks like it isn’t known what all those names were. I’m hoping that someone [...]
Earlier this moth, a water pipe burst in the Local History Room in the Rockingham Library of Bellow’s Falls, Vermont. The following excerpt is from an article in the December 30, 2010 edition of the Vermont Public Radio website. It details conservation efforts taking place to save some of the precious historic documents. (Host) Earlier [...]
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 [...]
