At 8 p.m. ET, “Who Do You Think You Are?” (1.8/6 in 18-49, 7.2 million viewers overall) is up in its second week by 13 percent in 18-49 (1.8 vs. 1.6) and 4 percent in total viewers (7.153 million vs. 6.909 million), pending updates. This is NBC’s highest 18-49 rating in the time period with non-sports programming since January 15, 2009. “Who Do You Think You Are?” finished within a tenth of a rating point of first place for the hour in adults 18-49 and is currently tied for #1 among the major networks in adults, men and women 18-34.

Read the full article at Radio Businuss Report.

Again - Thanks to Megan’s tweet for alerting me to this…

Friday, March 12 - 8pm/7 C&M

• CBS: “Ghost Whisperer” (7.85 million viewers, 4.9/9 households)
• NBC: “Who Do You Think You Are?” (7.15 million, 4.5/8)
• ABC: “Supernanny” (4.9 million, 3.2/6)
• FOX: “House” rerun (3.1 million, 2.0/4)
• The CW: “America’s Next Top Model” rerun (1.7 million, 1.2/2)

As a comparison, check out the numbers for the debut show which aired last week starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Note that market share, as well as the number of viewers is up for “Who Do You Think You Are?, but Ghost Whisperer’s numbers are also up. It’s hard to beat fictional dead folks with real ones it seems…

Friday, March 5 - 8pm/7 C&M.

• CBS: “Ghost Whisperer” (7.4 million, 4.7/9)
• NBC: “Who Do You Think You Are?” (6.9 million viewers, 4.6/8 households)
• ABC: “Supernanny” (4.4 million, 2.9/5)
• FOX: “House” rerun (3.7 million, 2.3/4)
• The CW: “Smallville” rerun (1.5 million, 0.9/2)

Thanks to Megan’s tweet for alerting me to the numbers.

If you missed the episode, you may still view it in its entirety at NBC.com.

The following “backstory” about the Emmitt Smith program was received from Anastasia Tyler at Ancestry.com.

Seasoned researchers know that discovering the slavery roots in a family tree can be time consuming and difficult – perhaps even seemingly impossible. But, as Emmitt Smith’s story shows on this week’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, African Americans can discover their heritage. The genealogy team who worked on Emmitt’s tree shares a behind-the-scenes look at how they made the jump from post-1870 records to pre-Civil War records as they documented Emmitt’s enslaved ancestors.

Post-1870 Research
Vital records, census records and other primary sources allowed the research team to document Emmitt’s family tree back to great-great-grandparents – William Watson and Victoria Puryear. A 1900 U.S. Federal Census record from Monroe County, Alabama, indicated William and Victoria were both born in Alabama during the Civil War. These facts suggested that William and Victoria could have been born slaves, and perhaps their parents as well.

Since Victoria and William were born in the early 1860s, it was likely that records created post-1870 could shed some light on their parents. Vital records were especially helpful here; Victoria’s death certificate included the names of her parents, Prince Puryear and Annie McMillian.

The 1870 U.S. Federal Census added clues: Prince Puryear and his family (including young Victoria) were listed in Monroe County, Alabama. Additional Puryear households were also found on the same census page. The ages for the heads of the Puryear households made them potential brothers of Prince. These heads of households also had the same racial designation as Prince – Mulatto. Finally, one of the households listed a 55-year-old Mulatto woman born in Virginia named Mariah Puryear. “Our first thought was ‘Could Mariah be Prince’s mother?’” says genealogist Joseph Shumway, AG, of ProGenealogists. If the answer was yes, if Mariah was Prince’s mother, then Mariah would be Emmitt’s 4th great-grandmother.

Pre-Civil War Documentation
The research team needed to establish whether Mariah Puryear from the 1870 census was Prince Puryear’s mother. Slave research involves looking at records pertaining to the slave-holding families. Vital records were not kept for slaves, however slaves may be mentioned in records created when the slave owner dies and in records pertaining to deeded transactions. So the research team first had to determine the identity of the slave-holding family. Once found, the family’s records could reveal further information about Prince Puryear’s family and his potential connection to the woman named Mariah.

Emancipated slaves, in general, didn’t stray too far from their most recent owner’s property. In addition, many former slaves retained the surname of the former slave holders. So the researchers turned back to the 1870 census, looking for white families in the same vicinity as Emmitt’s Puryear ancestors. Interestingly enough, there was a white Puryear family living in Monroe County, Alabama. This family, potentially, could have been the slave-holding family.

The Puryears, like many slave owners, had extensive real estate, so the team looked for the family’s land records, deeds, and probate records. In the Monroe County probate records (on microfilm at the Family History Library), the researchers found probate records pertaining to the 1850-51 estate of Mary Puryear. The inventory of Mary’s property was a key document. In it she listed Mariah and her children, by name: “Mariah and children Henry, Mary, McTom, Victoria and Prince Albert.” Henry and Thomas were the names of two potential Puryear brothers who appeared on the same 1870 census page with Prince and Mariah. The inventory “matched the information we’d found in the census,” says Joseph. “With the combination of names and location, there was no doubt.”

Further records showed that Mary Puryear was the widow of slave owner Alexander Puryear and helped to solidify the connection between Prince, Mariah and the Puryear slave-holding family. “There are records out there,” Joseph concludes. “Just be persistent.”

You won’t want to miss next week’s episode. Lisa Kudrow sets out to learn the hard truth about what really happened to her Jewish ancestors during World War II. Despite the cold details of how the Holocaust impacted her family, Lisa’s episode ends with a silver lining. You can view a preview featuring Lisa Kudrow, and tune into NBC for the full episode on Friday, March 19, at 8/7c. [that's 7 pm in Utah, folks!].

This year, America conducts its 23rd census. The nation’s largest domestic mobilization began in a remote corner of Alaska and will continue throughout the rest of the country - and in Puerto Rico and the Island Areas (American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and the Virgin Islands) - with the goal of counting every resident once, and only once, and in the right place.

Although the 2010 Census questionnaire is simple and easy to fill out, the census is a massive, complex operation involving millions of forms and hundreds of thousands of census workers. To mark this milestone in the nation’s history, the Census Bureau presents some of the amazing numbers involved in counting the nation’s estimated 309 million residents. Periodically, throughout the duration of the census, we will update and reissue this Facts for Features.

Funds Allocation and Congressional Apportionment

More than $400 billion: Amount in federal funds distributed each year to states and communities based in part on census population data. http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/govsrr2009-1.pdf

435: Number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to be apportioned according to the 2010 Census. Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires a census once a decade. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html#1.2.3

2010 Census Questionnaire

10: It takes just 10 minutes for the average household to complete 10 simple questions. The census form is one of the shortest in history, asking households to provide the names of residents and their sex, age and date of birth, race, whether of Hispanic origin, relationship to householder, whether the home is owned or rented and telephone number. We also ask two questions needed to ensure an accurate count and good data quality. Note that the form does not ask about citizenship or legal status, or for anyone’s Social Security number.

134 million: Estimated number of housing units the Census Bureau will have to contact, either by mail or in person, to conduct the 2010 Census. This total includes:

• More than 120 million - Number of questionnaires to be delivered by mail to U.S. residential addresses between March 15 and March 17. Residents are asked to fill out the questionnaire and mail it back.
• 12 million - Number of addresses, mostly in rural areas, that will have questionnaires delivered to them by census takers starting March 1 and ending March 31. In these areas, residents also are asked to fill out the questionnaire and mail it back.
• 1.5 million - Number of addresses, in areas with seasonal housing and in very remote areas, in which enumerators will visit and fill out the questionnaire at the door, all in one visit.

99%: Percentage of the population in housing units that will be able to mail back the questionnaire. Approximately 90 percent will receive the questionnaire in the mail; another 9 percent will receive it from a census taker who will drop off the form for the resident to fill out and mail back. About 1 percent of the population will receive a visit from a census taker who will fill out the resident’s answers on the questionnaire at the home. This will occur mainly in the case of those living in areas with seasonal housing and in remote areas like many American Indian areas or the colonias along the border with Mexico. (Those living in group quarters will be enumerated separately from those in housing units.)

360 million: Total number of questionnaires that have been printed. Stacked one on top of another, a pile of these forms would stand about 29 miles high - more than five times higher than Mount Everest. Different operations require variations on the basic questionnaire; the questionnaire used in nonresponse follow-up, for instance, differs from the mail-out/mail-back questionnaire because it is designed for an enumerator to use in interviewing a household.

24/7/7: Printing the mail-out/mail-back questionnaires (those delivered by mail to residential addresses) required one printer using three printing presses, with one running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for seven months and the other two for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for about seven weeks.

11.6 million pounds: Collective weight of the paper the questionnaires were printed on. The printing of these questionnaires required 295,259 pounds of ink. The questionnaires printed, which fill nearly 425 tractor-trailers, would circle the globe three times if stretched end to end.

236,000: Estimated number of group quarters facilities, such as dormitories, prisons, convents and nursing homes, where residents will be counted beginning in April.

65,000: Estimated number of service locations, such as emergency/transitional shelters, soup kitchens, regularly scheduled mobile food vans and targeted nonsheltered outdoor locations, where people experiencing homelessness will be counted March 29 - 31.

47.8 million: Projected number of housing units that will fail to respond to the census by mail and will require a census taker to follow up in person to count the household. Receiving census forms by mail is much less expensive and saves taxpayers approximately $85 million for every percentage point increase in the national mail participation rate.

6: Number of languages that questionnaires are available in: English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Vietnamese. (Translated questionnaires are available only upon request.) In 2000, forms were also available in six languages, with Tagalog, rather than Russian, as one of the options.

59: Number of different languages for which Language Assistance Guides are available. These are documents that provide in-language translations of the English census form and that explain in-language how to complete an English-language census questionnaire and are available online at 2010census.gov. We also have guides available in Braille and in large print. http://2010.census.gov/partners/materials/inlanguage.php

13.5 million: Estimated number of bilingual (English/Spanish) questionnaires that will be delivered to housing units in neighborhoods with high concentrations of residents who speak Spanish at home.

$85 million: For each percentage point increase in the 2010 Census mail-back response rate, the estimated amount of taxpayer money the Census Bureau saves by not having to go door to door to count nonresponding households.

$0.42 vs. $56: The cost of obtaining a mailed-back census form (42 cents), compared with the estimated cost of obtaining a household’s census responses in person if the household doesn’t mail back the form ($56). (Note: Costs may vary depending on the number of households enumerators will have to visit.)

15: Minimum age a household member must be in order to fill out the census questionnaire.

More than one race: As in Census 2000, people answering the census may select more than one racial category to indicate mixed racial heritage. The groups shown in the census race question collapse into the five race groups required by the federal government: white, black or African-American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. The questionnaire also provides a choice of “some other race.” Tabulations will be available for 63 race categories - six single race categories and 57 different combinations of two or more races.

March 15-17, 2010: Dates on which most residents will receive questionnaires in the mail. The questionnaire package will also include a cover letter and a return envelope. Residents will receive an advance letter between March 8 and 10 alerting them to look for their questionnaires and explaining the importance of participating in the census. Between March 22 and 24, residents will receive a reminder card. The dates may differ in areas where census workers are dropping off questionnaires.

April 1, 2010: Since 1930, Census Day has been April 1. Census Day is not the deadline for mailing back the questionnaire. As a matter of fact, we hope people will mail the questionnaire soon after they receive it and not wait for Census Day. Census Day is simply the reference date we set for people to report their household information. Households can change composition quickly but we ask that they report the composition as it is or is most likely to be on Census Day.

Recruiting and Hiring

3.8 million: Total number of people recruited for 2010 Census operations during fiscal years 2009 and 2010 (as of March 1). This includes almost 1.2 million people recruited for address canvassing last year. Job information is provided at the census jobs Web site http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs/.

1.2 million: Number of field positions needed to conduct census operations this year. We will hire an estimated 870,000 temporary workers to fill these positions - more than the population of Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont or Wyoming. Some people will work on more than one operation. For the large nonresponse follow-up operation, we expect to hire 635,000 people, who may also work on other operations; the number hired may vary depending on the size of the follow-up workload. Everyone we hire must pass an FBI name check and submit two sets of fingerprints for further background checks. They also must pass an employment eligibility verification based on their Social Security Number and other information. At the U.S. Census Bureau, the safety of both our workforce and respondents is our top priority.

Facilities

3: Number of data capture centers that will process 2010 Census questionnaires as they are mailed back by households across the nation. These facilities are in Phoenix, Baltimore and Jeffersonville, Ind. During peak processing, the three centers together can capture and process data from 1.9 million mail-returned forms per day and 1.4 million enumerator forms per day. (The latter category refers to forms for which all the answers to the questions have been recorded by the census taker, rather than by the respondent, during the nonresponse follow-up operation.)

600,000: Projected number of calls from respondents to the telephone questionnaire assistance call centers on the busiest day (possibly March 22 or 23). Assistance will be available in the six questionnaire languages mentioned earlier. Respondents will be able to call with questions.

494: Number of local census offices. Along with the 12 regional census centers, they will collectively take up about 3.5 million square feet of office space. Staff working in and from these temporary offices manage address listing field work, conduct local recruiting and visit living quarters to conduct various census operations, such as nonresponse follow-up. http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs/how-to-apply/local-office-map.php

About 30,000: Number of questionnaire assistance center sites. These centers provide assistance to those who might have difficulty completing the questionnaire because of language or other barriers. Sites will be posted on www.2010census.gov. http://2010.census.gov/2010census/contact/index.php

About 40,000: Number of “Be Counted” sites, where people who believe they were not counted can obtain an unaddressed questionnaire. About 30,000 of these sites will be in the same convenient locations as the questionnaire assistance centers. Sites will be posted on www.2010census.gov.

Partnership

About 213,000: Number of organizations (as of March 8, 2010) the Census Bureau has formed partnerships with to help get the message out about the importance of mailing back questionnaires and participating in the census.

10,000: Approximate number of complete count committees (as of March 8, 2010). These groups, often named by the highest elected official for that local or state government, spearhead the effort to get the word out in their cities about the importance of the census.

More than 3,000: Number of Census Bureau partnership staff; they have proficiency in 124 different languages. These staff work closely with national and local organizations to support the census. It is critical that they be able to reach all respondents no matter what language the respondents may speak.

$338.5 million: The value of the free space that 2010 Census partners have donated for the Census Bureau to use for training census workers for the in-person follow-up phase of the census.

Road Tour

13 + 3: Since the start of the year, 13 Portrait of America Road Tour vehicles have been traveling across the nation to educate communities about the 2010 Census and encourage every individual to complete and return their census form. In addition, there are three more that have hit the road more recently. One vehicle is traveling throughout Hawaii and the other two are visiting American Indian areas in Southern California and the mountain time zone.

800: Number of community gatherings, celebrations and sporting events the 13 Road Tour vehicles will be stopping at. Collectively, they will travel for 1,547 days between January and April.

More than 150,000: Number of miles it is expected the Road Tour vehicles will travel collectively. They will be viewed by an estimated 18 million people while in transit.

Paid Advertising

28: Number of languages census advertisements will appear in. This is up from 17 in 2000. The 2010 Census advertising campaign represents the most diverse outreach campaign in U.S. history. No other campaign has gone so deep into the Asian market, with advertising in 13 languages (Chinese-Mandarin, Chinese-Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean, Hindi, Tagalog, Japanese, Khmer, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Hindi and Bengali).

$133 million: Cost of the national advertising campaign to boost participation rates in the 2010 Census.

$1: The approximate cost per household that the Census Bureau is spending to motivate people to fill out and mail back their 2010 Census forms.

3: Number of phases for the 2010 Census advertising campaign: awareness (January-February), motivational (March-April) and nonresponse follow-up (May-June).

3: Number of NASCAR Sprint Cup races in which the 2010 Census-sponsored No. 16 Ford Fusion (driven by Greg Biffle) will compete: the Kobalt Tools 500 in Atlanta (March 7), the Food City 500 in Bristol, Tenn. (March 21) and the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 in Martinsville, Va. (March 28).

“Take 10″: The “Take 10″ Challenge Program urges partners, complete count committees and elected officials to better their respective community’s 2000 Census mail participation rates. Starting March 22, the Census Bureau will post on its Web site mail participation rates for geographic areas down to the census tract level; these figures will be updated daily through April. In the case of participation rates, communities can compete with other communities and also with their own 2000 Census performance.

Census in Schools

118,000: Number of schools (grades K-12) receiving Census in Schools materials and encouraged to set up a “Census in Schools Week” from January through May to educate approximately 56 million students about the 2010 Census. Census in Schools tries to reach students in all public, charter, private, parochial and tribal schools in the United States, including Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Confidentiality
0: Number of organizations with which the Census Bureau shares confidential information. Title 13 of the U.S. Code prohibits the Census Bureau from sharing confidential information with other government agencies, immigration authorities, law enforcement or any other organization. Census Bureau employees take a lifetime oath swearing to keep information confidential. Penalties for violations include up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

72: Number of years individual census records are kept before they are made public by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Shortly after the census is completed, the Census Bureau turns over the images of the questionnaires to NARA, which in turn keeps them secure for the next seven-plus decades. In 2012, individual records from the 1940 Census will be made available to the public for the first time for genealogical research.

Cost

$14.5 billion: Estimated cost of the 2010 Census, covering fiscal years 2001 through 2013. The total includes the cost of the American Community Survey for each of these years.

Mark your calendar …

Here is a schedule of major 2010 Census activities:

2010 Census Calendar
January-May, 2010: Remote Alaska - Enumeration of sparsely settled villages before spring thaw.

February-April 2010: Questionnaire Assistance Centers - Walk-in centers open to answer respondent questions.

February-July 2010: Telephone Questionnaire Assistance - Toll free lines operating to answer respondent questions.

Feb. 1-March 19 2010: Group Quarters Advance Visit - Census takers arrange for ideal dates/times for the enumeration of residents of group quarters.

March 1-April 2 2010: Update/Leave Enumeration - Census takers deliver census questionnaires in rural areas (9 percent of all housing units) for respondents to fill out and mail back.

March 8-10 2010: Advance Letter for mail-out of questionnaires - Households in mail-out/mail-back areas (about 90% of the country) receive advance letter announcing census questionnaire is coming in the mail.

March 15-17 2010: Mail-out Questionnaires - Households in mail-out/mail-back areas receive census questionnaires in the mail.

March 22-May 29 2010: Update/Enumerate Operation - Census takers visit housing units in very remote areas (e.g., many Indian reservations) and conduct the census at the door.

March 22-24 2010: Reminder Card - Postcard sent to remind people to return their Census questionnaires and to thank them if they already did.

March 29-March 31 2010: Service Based Enumeration - Census takers conduct the census enumeration of shelters for people experiencing homelessness, and of other service-based locations.

April 1, 2010: Census Day - Reference date for the information recorded on the census questionnaire.

April 1-10, 2010: Replacement Questionnaire - Second questionnaire sent in some mail-out/mail-back areas to increase mail response rates.

April-May 2010: Group Quarters Enumeration - Enumeration of group quarters occurs

May 1-July 10 2010: Nonresponse Follow-Up - If housing units that do not return their questionnaire will be visited by an enumerator, who will conduct the census at the door.

July-August 2010: Vacant and Delete Check - Questionnaires classified as vacant or delete during the previous operations are re-visited to verify the status.

August-October 2010: Census Coverage Measurement Person Interview - Independent, parallel survey to measure quality of coverage in the census.

December 31, 2010: Apportionment Deadline - Delivery of population counts and apportionment of House seats to the President.

March 31, 2011: Redistricting Data Deadline - Date by which the Census Bureau is required to provide small-area population counts to the legislature and governor of each state for use in redrawing congressional and state legislative

December 2012: Census Coverage Measurement - Results published based on the survey to measure the quality of census coverage.

From the U.S. Census Bureau’s Facts for Features.

You don’t want to miss seeing tonight’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC. NFL-great Emmitt Smith will be featured, and I’m told that this show will be one of the most compelling of the series.

Check out the preview of the Emmitt Smith episode.

Emmitt Smith is the NFL’s all-time leading rusher amassing 18,355 yards over 14 NFL seasons. He’s the only rushing back to win a Super Bowl, the NFL MVP Award, the NFL Rushing Crown, and the Super Bowl MVP Award all in a single season (1993). The former Florida Gator set dozens of school and NCAA records before moving on to the NFL, where he earned eight trips to the Pro Bowl and three Super Bowl Championship rings playing for the Dallas Cowboys. Smith retired in 2006, but it wasn’t long before he was back in the spotlight; he and partner Cheryl Burke won the Season 3 championship of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

The WDYTYA? programs are weekly on Fridays, 8/7 Central. That’s also 7 Mountain Time. I’ve noted that many folks in Utah missed last week’s episode thinking it would be at 8 pm.

Leta Gass is a lifelong Polk Countian, and she has a lengthy lineage of ancestors who helped shape Polk County into what it is today.

She can document back to 1837 when her great-great-grandfather, M.G. Campbell, was listed on the tax roll of Polk County. That lineage earned her the honor of being issued the first certificate in the Polk County Genealogical Society’s new ongoing “First Families of Polk County” project.

“It acknowledges the people who helped shape the destiny of Polk County,” said Susan Sparks, Polk County Genealogical Society president.

Read the full article.

In a press statement, Ombudsman Arlene Brock explained her reasons for forwarding the databases of the 1821 and 1834 registers to the Bermuda College, Bermuda National Museum and National Trust.

She said the databases were developed in searchable format by Virginia Bernhard of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Dr. Bernhard gifted the first part to the archives more than a decade ago, with the intention they be available for public research.

However, this was not done. Ms Brock launched an investigation into barriers to public access to the archives last year, based on complaints from researchers and historians.

Read the full article.

Genealogy has given me a lot of fun, but more importantly it has given me a sense of where I belong in the grand scheme of things. And it is not among royalty, either. No, I sprang from a large collection of average Americans, where everyone is royalty, or at least we think we are as good as anyone else. Royalty is a private club of those who are born to it. They can neither get in voluntarily nor can they leave voluntarily. Royalty is a genetic condition that is not always good. Many of the royals were bad politicians. They were so bad that various parliaments have taken away their political powers.

Think about it: would you rather be remembered as King George III (who lost the American Colonies) or would you rather be remembered as Mrs. Rosa Parks (the elderly lady who refused to give her bus seat to a white person)? Surely, one of these two has done more for society than the other. I think Mrs. Parks has a special kind of American royalty.

My son-in-law asked me to help him with his genealogy. His dad, divorced from his mother, died a heavy drinker. He was not well thought of in his family. We got to looking through old records and did not find much. Then my son-in-law mentioned that his dad had served in WWII. Once I had the name of his dad’s Army unit I found all sorts of things on the Internet, by tracing that unit from Casablanca through the north of Italy. He had been in the Fifth Army and I had written a book about the Fifth in Italy called Full Duty, so I knew something of its history.

It turns out that his dad carried a rifle and had been through some of the harshest fighting in WWII. He was in the same outfit that Senator Bob Dole was in, but Dole was blown up and suffered the rest of his life. I thought about the death and destruction that this dad must have been through for four long years, and told my son-in-law, “Your dad was a true American hero.”

“Heroism leaves scars,” I wrote in one book or another. I am sure this dad was not the same person when he came out of the Army that he was when he went in, four years before. He must have suffered all sorts of internal emotional injuries that kept him from living like many other young men of the same age. “Cut your dad some slack,” I told my son-in-law, “Accept him as a war hero injured in some of the fiercest fighting mankind has ever seen.”

Most of us genealogists need tolerance.

Having learned tolerance at an early age, I was well suited for a study of genealogy. Why did I learn tolerance? Well my mother was a Southern Baptist Democrat and my father was a Episcopalian Conservative Republican. Try growing up in a household staffed with parents like that when both were active politically and in their churches. Talk about tip-toeing through the tulips! My two brothers and I had to be careful not to choose sides. We watched and listened to the various opinions they offered without belonging to any of the groups more than nominally.

My father’s ancestors, I later learned, were there when Rhode Island was founded, while my mother’s ancestors were busy in Virginia at an equally early age. Some of them were American Indians, too. Dark skins and tomahawks and all that. But whatever their backgrounds, I found that my parents were both Southerners, so they could agree on one thing besides their love for each other.

“What does tolerance have to do with genealogy?” you might ask. It is just that we are not who we think we are or who we want to be. We are, warts and all, the sum totals of those folks whom we discovered in piles of musty old records. If we want to be honest, we have to accept them and find the good where we can.

Oh, I know, we try to put the best face on what we find, but really, that is just window dressing, pumping up the resume’ a tad. No one is fooled if we claim to be descended from earls and princes and explorers—least of all, ourselves. Down deep, we know we are (most of us) ordinary folks, raw immigrants at one time who may not have made big marks in history by themselves.

But, and this is a big but, together with the rest of society in our area, we formed churches, libraries, schools, hospitals and homes for the poor. We were minor political leaders, ministers, or simply followers of the law, the kinds of people who made this the great nation it became in a rather short time. We were the type of people who “caught the vision” of what kind of place we wanted to live in. Americans had the choice few others in the history of the world have had. We chose to live in a democratic society that we made up as we went along.

Once I asked my mother why people did not break the law and cheat in some obvious way (that a seven year-old could discern), when cheating appeared so easy. Mother said, “I suppose it is because people don’t want to live in a world full of cheaters.” And I think Mother really had a handle on something big. She had “caught the vision.”

We do not have a large number of policemen watching over us because by and large, we are a law-abiding society. That is part of the American ethic. We protect the small and weak, we generally pay our taxes, we pay to attend theaters, and we generally know how to conduct ourselves in stores where a customer takes items from the shelves by himself (in some countries, that could never occur). Nowadays in some stores we even check ourselves out and pay for our purchases without supervision! A democracy won’t work everywhere. It needs a good ethical system to support it.

When I retired from industry, I had too much energy to sit in a chair and rock, so I joined up with the local school district to teach science and math. Having tried all grade levels from 6 to 12, I began to specialize in the seventh grade (I thought about teaching elementary school kids, but I looked at the size of my shoes and decided not. I was afraid I might accidentally step on a second-grader and kill it).

As a fully accredited school teacher overseeing classrooms of 30-36 kids at a time, I began to see where some of our ideas about society came from. It was in the home where societal rules were introduced, but it was in the classroom where they were reinforced. Teachers didn’t just teach algebra, they also protected small kids from the big predatory ones, they frowned on cheating, they encouraged self-confidence, and they showed kids the value of an orderly, ethical society. It was amazing how quickly I fell into the habits my teachers had from fifty years before; those habits were part of my psyche.

And there was one more thing I saw from the head of the classroom every morning: I saw 36 kids of all kinds, shapes and colors. “Here is real Democracy,” I often thought. Every kid is treated the same no matter what. I realized that teaching kids in a democratic society is a rare privilege. So is the opportunity to pass along the American “vision.” We owe our school teachers a great deal.

What will future genealogists find, a hundred years from now? Will they see our lives as brief flashes of history with birth, marriage and death dates firmly attached to our names… and little else? Or will they see our lives as parts of a continuity that gave strength and depth to the fabric of a great society which influenced the rest of the world? It depends in part on what kind of a story we leave them. Maybe we can be anchors that give them perspectives both about their pasts and their positions in the present. I am grateful for the vision that my ancestors left for me.

Thomas S. Fiske
Fullerton, CA
February 20,2010

Holly and the Family History Expos crew are rebuilding from the ground up. I want to personally invite my readers to visit their new website, a beautiful work in progress, and register to receive their free E-news and Tips.

We have attended many Expos sponsored by Family History Expos, the latest being those held in Redding, California; Mesa, Arizona; and St. George, Utah and believe that you will enjoy attending one in the near future. I just happen to be speaking at most of them. This year there will be Expos from California to Georgia and many places in between - and I plan to be at every one of them. Information on each Expo will be coming online soon. For more information, see their website at http://www.fhexpos.com/

Plan to attend the Immigration Family History Expo in Salt Lake City this next week (March 18). It promises to be a great educational experience for us genealogy folks…

• Organizing, Preserving, Accessing & Sharing Your Genealogy Using Digital Document & Pictures
• Blogging Your Genealogy
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• Using tax Records to Extend Your Genealogy

The March 7, 2010 Virginian-Pilot ran an article about the upcoming program. Following is a copy of it. The link to their page is limited to subscribers, but the illustration below should give you some idea of the great publicity the program is getting. That’s an interesting photo of me. I swear it shows all 5 of my chins!

Click on this link for more information about the seminar.

The following was received from Anastasia Tyler at Ancesty.com:

An hour doesn’t offer much time to delve into the research processes that genealogists used as they traced the family history of actress Sarah Jessica Parker for this week’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? We sat down with the research team who worked on Sarah Jessica’s family tree to talk about what it took to find her elusive gold miner ancestor. I’ve recapped that conversation here:

First Steps First
Similar to Sarah Jessica Parker’s own assumptions at the beginning of the show, research on the tree began with vague ideas that her family was comprised of recent immigrants. The team first developed a skeleton of Sarah Jessica’s family history. “We documented every connection and every life event for her ancestors,” says Natalie Cottrill of ProGenealogists, who appeared with Sarah Jessica in the episode, “finding information about Sarah Jessica’s family in court records, newspaper articles, books, and personal letters published in books.” And that’s how they found John S. Hodge.

The First Nugget
The first clue about John S. Hodge’s life came from his son’s obituary, which stated that John S. Hodge died in 1849 on his way to California from Ohio. Since the death date came from an obituary written decades after John S. Hodge died, the team looked for primary sources recorded during or around the anticipated lifespan for John S. Hodge. For starters, the team wanted to determine why the ancestral John S. Hodge was going to California, as the son’s obituary stated. Considering the time period – 1849 – it seemed probable that John S. Hodge could have been heading to the California gold fields.

The Right John?
The search led to a John Hodge, who was the right age to be Sarah Jessica’s ancestor, listed as a miner in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census for El Dorado County, California. This record shifted research to determining whether the California John Hodge was the ancestral John S. Hodge, and the researchers turned to records associated with the 49ers. “We found a letter written by someone in Ohio to John S. Hodge, which had been published in a book,” says Natalie. “One of my colleagues tracked down the original set of letters, which provided more details, including information about John S. Hodge’s 1950 death.” Estate and other documents further confirmed that the ancestral John S. Hodge and the California miner John Hodge was the same individual.

If you missed the Sarah Jessica Parker episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, you can watch full episodes online at NBC.com. And you won’t want to miss former NFL football player Emmitt Smith set out to discover his slavery roots this Friday, March 12, at 8/7c on NBC. Lisa Kudrow said his episode is the most compelling of the seven (and, personally, I have to agree). Check out the teaser to the episode featuring Emmitt.

The book is selling at Amazon for $16.47 (Reg. $24.95).

Call for Lecture Proposals - “Pathways to the Heartland”
2011 FGS/ISGS National Conference - 7-10 September 2011

The Federation of Genealogical Societies and the Illinois State Genealogical Society are pleased to announce the official call for lecture proposals for our 2011 national conference, “Pathways to the Heartland,” to be held in Springfield, Illinois, 7-10 September 2011. The conference will explore the resources of America’s Heartland through a variety of regional and national topics aimed at engaging genealogists and family historians of all levels and experience. Topics relating to the Midwest, migration patterns, and religious and ethnic groups are encouraged. Wednesday, 7 September 2011 will include “Focus on Societies,” with lectures, focus groups, and other special events devoted to assisting genealogical societies, lineage societies, historical societies, and family associations succeed and thrive in their activities.

The program committee is specifically seeking new and dynamic proposals that will provide exceptional and unique educational experiences for conference attendees.

Potential categories for submissions include:

 Focus on Societies
 Methodologies and Strategies
 Migration/Immigration
 Regions
 Repositories
 Record Types
 Technology
 Religious and Ethnic Groups
 Midwestern Records

Speakers are strongly encouraged to submit multiple proposals (more than four) as most speakers, if selected, will provide a minimum of three lectures at the conference. There is no limit to the number of proposals a speaker may submit.

Submission Requirements
Submissions should be sent in PDF, Microsoft Word, or RTF format. File names should include your last name, first initial, and proposal topic (ex: SmithJ - Organization).

Each proposal should include:

 Speaker(s) name
 Speaker(s) contact information (including mailing address, phone, fax, e-mail). Please add your website, if applicable.
 Prior speaking experience (speakers who have not spoken at a national conference are encouraged to submit a video, audiotape, or CD recording of a recent lecture by mail).
 Speaker(s) biography
 Speaker(s) brief brochure biography (50 word maximum)
 Lecture title (titles should not exceed 10 words: title your presentations carefully, as the title that is submitted is the title that will be used in the conference program).
 Lecture brochure description (40 word maximum)
 Lecture outline/summary
 Lecture audio-visual requirements (FGS does NOT provide LCD/digital projectors, computers, or Internet access for speakers).
 Intended Audience Level

Proposals should be sent electronically to program2011@fgs.org no later than 15 May 2010.

Additional Information
Speakers will receive compensation according to the FGS Conference Speaker Policy at http://www.fgs.org/conferences/speakerpolicy.php.
 
Camera-ready handouts are required for each lecture or workshop presentation and will be compiled in a syllabus distributed to conference participants. The deadline for submissions of syllabus materials is 1 April 2011. Guidelines for the formatting of the syllabus content will be sent to speakers. 
 
Invitations to speak will be issued in October 2010 and the deadline for acceptance and submission of a signed contract will be 1 November 2010.

Registrants had opportunities to attend lectures by both Ancestry.com and NEHGS staffers. They were also invited to bring in family papers, documents, and photographs for free scanning into electronic format by Ancestry.com. Ancestry states that they scanned more than 2,000 documents and photos for about 125 people. This breaks Ancestry’s all-time record for one day of scanning.

Registrants also had an opportunity to sign up for 15-minute, 1-on-1 consultations with expert genealogists from NEHGS and the Association of Professional Genealogists - New England Chapter. Over 500 consultations were given by more than 30 professional genealogists.

Tom also noted that ” …we organized the entire event in mid-December, giving us about 2 months of planning time to pick a venue and create the day’s events. Ancestry was incredibly pleased that we were able to help bring 700+ people to the hotel for the day. It should be worth noting that we had another 300 people on a wait-list, and the hotel receive more than 150 additional phone calls from people wanting to register.” I’ve been hearing for some time that the event was “sold out.” It’s nice to see the hobby of genealogy getting this kind of reception.