Just a note to let you know that I won't be posting again until Sunday or Monday of next week. I'm off to the big NGS Conference in Kansas City. If you should see me there (Tom Pearson), say hi and let me know how I'm doing! Have a great week!
BTW, I'll have a report for you about the Conference, and hope to take some photos I can post here on MoSGA Messenger.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!
SHALOM, Y’ALL!
Are you researching Jewish ancestors who lived in the Deep South (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and northern Florida)? Then you should know about the Deep South Jewish Voice:
LINK
WHAT’S IN MY GENES?
WHAT’S NEXT-- NEANDERTAL PARK?
They’ve sequenced an entire Neandertal genome- it’s merely a matter of time till you’re riding the morning bus to work with Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble:
LINK
HOW DID HE DIE?
A Civil War soldier was much more likely to die in this manner than he was to be shot, stabbed, or mangled by an artillery shell:
LINK
Note: This killer could even take his life years after the war ended...
200 YEARS OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Would you like to know what kind of books your ancestors read as children? Find out at the University of Delaware Library Special Collections Department’s online exhibit, World of the Child-- Two Hundred Years of Children’s Books:
LINK
ASK A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS LIBRARIAN
Have a question about finding / interpreting some kind of government document? Ask a government documents librarian (for free)! Answers within 48 hours:
LINK
Saturday, May 10, 2008
FROM BRITAIN'S SECRET FILES...
Recently released classified British documents, including a number concerned with the finding of "treasure" (archaeological artifacts) on British soil, and one concerning possible British preparations just in case the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 had ended with an "atomic incident":
LINK
VATICAN MOVES TO BLOCK FURTHER COPYING BY LDS CHURCH OF PARISH RECORDS
The sticking point seems to be the Mormon practice of re-baptism of the dead:
LINK
EPIDEMIC TIMELINE
Epidemic Timeline is all the proof I need that the "good old days" weren't all good...
LINK
NARA CENTRAL PLAINS REGION BRANCH FINDING AIDS
Did you know that NARA Central Plains Region Branch has a great collection of online finding aids? Topics include:
Select a Topic
* Aliens
* Chinese Immigration
* Labor/Employment
* Land
* Leavenworth Penitentiary Inmates
* National Parks
* Native Americans
* Naturalizations
* New Deal/Great Depression Era
* Veterans
LINK
Friday, May 09, 2008
BY ANY OTHER NAME, PT. 2…
The people of the Greek island of Lesbos are hopping mad. They want to be able to call themselves what they’ve been calling themselves for thousands of years-- Lesbians-- but that appellation appears to have been usurped by another group…
LINK
ARMED FORCES MAKE PROGRESS IN REGENERATIVE MEDICINE
Amazing-- their goal isn't better prosthetics, it's to eliminate the need for prosthetics entirely...
American Forces Press Service
Thu, 8 May 2008 09:48:00 -0500
by Jamie Findlater
Special to American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 8, 2008 - Thanks to great strides in medical care, today's U.S. warriors have a 50 percent greater chance of survival if they're wounded on the battlefield than their Vietnam War counterparts did. State-of-the-art prosthetics help troops who have lost a limb resume many, and in some cases all, of their pre-injury activities.
The Defense Department is hoping to find new and even better ways to help the nation's warriors as it researches a field called regenerative medicine that would enable people to generate new skin and even grow new limbs, Army Col. (Dr.) Robert Vandre told online journalists and "bloggers" in a conference call yesterday.
Vandre, research area director for combat casualty care research at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, has fielded the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a consortium that has the top scientists in the field working with the Army to drastically improve the quality of life of wounded service members.
Statistics show that 82 percent of returning wounded servicemembers have extremity injuries, 33 percent have wounds to the face or head, and 5 to 6 percent have burns, Vandre said. He noted that thanks to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, prosthetics for wounded warriors have come a long way in recent years.
"DARPA has great programs in place for prosthetics," he noted, "but we are hoping that eventually there will be no need for prosthetics."
Vandre said doctors often are forced to remove limbs because they know that if they don't, the injured servicemember would always be in excruciating pain, and unable to function normally. The Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine is working to find ways to improve chances of recovery and regeneration that would encourage doctors to keep damaged limbs in place.
"The idea is to use stem cells to put people back together and re-grow the cells that are damaged," Vandre said. The scientists use adult stem cells from the actual patients in their research to minimize the likelihood of rejection.
"Aside from guaranteeing that the body will likely accept the new stem cells, adult stem cells are also less likely than fetal stem cells to cause cancer," he said.
Vandre explained a process called extracellular matrix, in which scientists are working to re-grow damaged muscles.
"Currently, if someone has a wound right in the middle of the muscle and is missing the middle third part, there is not much you can do," he explained. "But with regenerative growth, you can tie the ends back together."
Vandre said the ability to produce new skin should be available in the next few years. "We will easily be able to do things like replace ears and the tip of the nose," he said.
Seven of the 10 top regenerative scientists in the United States are part of the institute, Vandre said, calling that a great indication of its potential for success. "It's really a dream team of people," he said.
The team is funded by $85 million in Department of Defense and National Institute of Health research funding and an additional $80 million generated through state and university grants.
"Since many of these scientists are already pretty big-name people, they already have grants from NIH and the National Science Foundation that adds about another 100 million worth of research to the total equation," he said.
Funding is key, he said, because it determines how many ideas can go forward as projects. "Out of 100 things you work on in the lab, only one becomes a project," he said. "We are bringing the gap by providing the funding to bring some of these projects to fruition, translating basic research to affect actual people."
This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Department of Defense. Visit us on the web at http://www.defenselink.mil/.
A GREAT CITY DESERVES A GREAT GENIE SOCIETY...
And if you have ancestors from Chicago / Cook County, you're in luck! Go here to learn more about the Chicago Genealogical Society:
LINK
LET'S SEE-- WE KNOW THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE BLIND, DRUNK, OR ILLITERATE...
Here's what enumerators of the federal census (1850-1950) were SUPPOSED to do:
LINK
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS SWEET...
But, ladies and gentleman, they weren't selling roses to the highest bidder at THIS auction:
LINK
BTW- I know it's not really genealogy-related (but do write and tell me if it is for you), but it's a VERY good story...
OK, SO THE CIVIL WAR ISN'T OVER, AFTER ALL...
A Civil War Navy gun crew fires a 75-pound cannonball in 1864, and it kills a Virginia civilian-- in 2008! How is that possible?
LINK
Thursday, May 08, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT!
Today (May 8th) is the birthday of Missouri President Harry S. Truman. President Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri. He was the son of John and Martha Truman.
President & Mrs. Truman on his famous Whistle Stop Tour, October 6, 1948 (photo credit: America.gov).
President Harry S. Truman (photo credit: CIA Library).
President Truman died on December 26, 1972.
FREE NEWSLETTERS FROM UNCLE SAM
Subscribe to free government newsletters on a wide variety of subjects:
Business and Finance | Defense | Education, Employment and Benefits | Environment and Agriculture | Foreign Affairs | Health, Safety and Consumer Protection | Housing | Information Technology Security | Misc. | Taxes | Travel
LINK
U.S. GOVERNMENT PHOTOS, GRAPHICS, AND MULTIMEDIA
Audio-visual items of interest, courtesy of your Uncle Sam (and don't forget, Uncle Sam doesn't copyright the works he produces):
Blogs from the U.S. Government
Government RSS Library
Podcasts from the U.S. Government
State Photo Galleries
U.S. Government Photos and Graphics
Videos from the U.S. Government
LINK
NEW NAMES ETCHED INTO VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL WALL
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 7, 2008 - The names of four U.S. servicemembers were etched into the glossy black walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this week alongside more than 58,000 of their fallen comrades.
Finishing the addition today was the name of Raymond C. Mason, a Marine lance corporal who died a year ago as a result of ailing health stemming from a bullet wound that paralyzed him in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive.
In a ceremony at the wall here, Mason's widow, Priscilla Mason, watched as an engraver inched a sandblaster over the Marine's stenciled name with surgeonlike precision.
Priscilla got on bended knee, held a sheet of paper up to the bright, new inscription, and rubbed a crayon in diagonal strokes until "RAYMOND C MASON" was embossed against the white paper. She said she plans to have the outline tatto oed onto her skin, and she has promised to make dozens of rubbings for friends back home in Riverside, R.I., when she returns here on Memorial Day.
"This is wonderful. He's finally home," she said when asked how she felt upon seeing the finished product on Panel 41E, Line 64 of the memorial.
The names of Richard M. Goosens, a Marine lance corporal, and Dennis O. Hargrove and Darrell J. Naylor, both Army specialists fourth class, were inscribed here yesterday. The Defense Department determined that their deaths, which occurred years after the end of U.S. operations in Vietnam, resulted from wounds suffered in a combat zone there.
The wall's 58,260 etched names bear testament to the ultimate sacrifice paid by those U.S. troops, said R. James Nicholson, former secretary of Veterans Affairs.
"It's also a tangible expression of the gratitude of the American people for those who served and died there," he said in an interview today. "The hope is that more and more Americans will learn and grow to appreciate the sacrifice a nd the price that was paid to perpetuate our freedom."
Designed by architect Maya Lin and built in 1982, the memorial consists of two black walls sunken into the ground, with a rolling mound of earth behind it sloping toward a heavily trafficked street.
"It was Maya's vision for the memorial that it appear as a rift in the earth," said J.C. Cummings, architect of record for the memorial. "At the same time, the wall serves a practical purpose of separating the visitor from the noise and the traffic of Constitution Avenue and the noise of the city."
As a result, the architecture creates a quiet and contemplative atmosphere, he said, a design that allows visitors to have a respectful experience.
Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said adding the names this week completes the healing process for surviving friends and family members. The additions also reflect America's solidarity with its servicemembers of past and present, he said.
"When you join the service, you can feel comfortable that the service is going to stand behind you," Scruggs said in an interview today. "Especially the people who are serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat, they need to kno w that we're behind them and we appreciate what they're doing."
This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Department of Defense. Visit us on the web at http://www.defenselink.mil/.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
ST. LOUIS CATHOLIC ORPHANAGE RECORDS
First published in Genealogy-in-St-Louis@googlegroups.com
Dear Dave Lossos,
I have "thanked my lucky stars" many times that I have access to the Catholic Church records at the St. Louis County Headquarters on Lindbergh.
I wanted to share an experience I had a few years ago in the hopes that it might
help someone else searching for an orphan.
I was researching an orphan girl raised at St. Ann's Asylum and St. Mary's Orphanage in the 1912-1926 time frame. I made three appointments with Catholic Children's Service before I was seen. I was told the records were destroyed in the 1970's. I was given copies of "non identifying information" that we already knew. Very disappointing and the cost was $40.00. I did come prepared with the orphan's marriage and death certificate.
After many false starts, I decided to take a look at the LDS Library catalog. Imagine my surprise to find that there were four microfilms of records of babies, children, and mothers from Catholic orphanages in St. Louis. I rented them and found my orphan's admittance into St. Ann's as a three year old and her transfer to St. Mary's Orphanage after reaching the age of six. Eventually I was able to find her birth family in far eastern Illinois.
I was so elated to find those records that I copied almost 800 pages, alphabetized them, and have used them to help others find their orphan records. With the MO State Archives online, I have been able to link death certificates to children and mothers. Connecting 28 orphans with families has made the work very satisfying.
I am very grateful to LDS for making it possible for me to do these searches by microfilming these Archdiocesan records.
Kathy Wieland of www.FamilyWeSearch.com
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Be sure to visit the "Genealogy in St. Louis" website at http://genealogyinstlouis.accessgenealogy.com
SCOTTISH ROOTS
First published in GENEALOGY GEMS: NEWS FROM THE FORT WAYNE LIBRARY, No. 49, March 31, 2008
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Scottish Roots
by Steven W. Myers
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Researchers with any hint of Scottish heritage in their background will find it useful to become familiar with the plethora of genealogical reference books produced by the indefatigable David Dobson. Over the last 25 years, he has combed unusual printed sources, newspaper archives and manuscript collections looking for records that provide linkages between the Scottish diaspora and individual Scottish
emigrants and specific places in Scotland.
Conducting an author search for David Dobson in the online catalog of Genealogy Center print publications yields 71 items that represent the fruits of these labors thus far. The wide range of titles reflects the scope of his efforts, from his "Directory of Scots Banished to the American Plantations, 1650-1775" to "The French and Indian War from Scottish Sources." Most of his work focuses on the late 16th to early 19th centuries, supplying the names of specific individuals with
links, not just to Colonial America, but to Canada, the West Indies, Latin America, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, the Baltic States and Australasia, among others. Some volumes focus on links with specific places in America, such as "Scots on the Chesapeake, 1607-1830." Others feature linkages with specific areas in Scotland, such as his multi-volume "Scottish Highlanders on the Eve of the Great Migration,
1725-1775," each volume covering a different county. Dobson also pays significant attention to his Irish cousins with his two series "Scots-Irish Links, 1575-1725" and "Irish Emigrants in North America," each in six parts. Many, but not all, of these volumes are also searchable online at Ancestry.com.
For those not lucky enough to find their ancestor on a passenger list, Dobson has also compiled several volumes listing voyages of specific ships to America. These volumes could supply a valuable clue in researching family origins, and they include "Transatlantic Voyages, 1600-1699," "Ships from Scotland to America, 1628-1828" (3 vols.), "Ships from Scotland to North America, 1830-1860," and "Ships from Ireland to Early America, 1623-1850." In addition, Dobson recently produced an
important research guide titled "Searching for Scotch-Irish Roots in Scottish Records, 1600-1750." This valuable tool identifies source material in Scottish archives that could help genealogists of Scotch-Irish descent locate their family's place of origin in Scotland. Researchers would benefit from examining Dobson's many
existing volumes, as well as keeping an eye out for his regular additions to our online catalog (available at www.acpl.info).
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Publishing Note:
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This electronic newsletter is published by the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center, and is intended to enlighten readers about genealogical research methods as well as inform them about the vast resources of the Allen County Public Library. We welcome the wide distribution of this newsletter and encourage readers to forward it to their friends and societies. All precautions have been made to avoid errors. However, the publisher does not assume any liability to any party for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, no matter the cause.
To subscribe to "Genealogy Gems," simply use your browser to go to the website: www.GenealogyCenter.Info. Scroll down toward the bottom of the first screen where it says, "Enter Your Email Address to Subscribe to "Genealogy Gems." Enter your email address in the yellow box and
click on "Subscribe." You will be notified with a confirmation email.
Curt Witcher, editor pro-tem
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
PASSPORTS, PLEASE!
Pond crossers / border crossers will also want to have boned up on new passport fees and procedures prior to any encounters with scary-looking Homeland Security personnel…
LINK
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