THE BATTLE OF COWPENS

Fascinating article on this Revolutionary War battle that took place in South Carolina:

LINK

SUING AND BEING SUED

This podcast from the National Archives (UK) discusses records of legal disputes held by that institution: some date back to the mid-17th century:

LINK

TELEKAST

Do you (or does someone you know) frequently present talks or speak to large audiences? If so, you might get a lot of use out of Telekast, a free teleprompter application:

LINK

OFFICE ON THE CHEAP

If you need to buy Microsoft Office, but the economy has left your wallet or purse empty, you may want to take a look at LibreOffice—it will look very familiar to Office users, but at a price even church mice can afford: $0.00:

LINK

U.S. GOVERNMENT MANUAL

You can access it here:

LINK

FAMILY TREE MAKER 2012 WITH TREESYNC™

PROVO, Utah (Sept. 29, 2011) – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced the release of Family Tree Maker® 2012, an improved and expanded version of the world’s No. 1 selling family history software. Now with its new TreeSync™ capabilities, Family Tree Maker 2012 enables family history enthusiasts to sync their desktop family trees and their trees online at Ancestry.com unlike any other desktop software available on the market.

“We have a long-term vision to make family history simple and more accessible to the masses,” said Eric Shoup, Senior Vice President of Products for Ancestry.com. “Now with the combination of Ancestry.com, the Ancestry mobile app and the new Family Tree Maker, users can work on their family tree anywhere, anytime.”

Family Tree Maker 2012 introduces TreeSync™ , which enables family historians to sync their online tree at Ancestry.com and their desktop family trees, including photos and other historical records they have attached. This enables Family Tree Maker users to bring their desktop tree online to share with invited guests and continue their research from wherever they are.

The new software comes with a free membership or free trial to Ancestry.com that gives users access to billions of historical records, and millions of memory-making historical photos, stories and family trees. Membership with Ancestry.com connects Family Tree Maker 2012 users to the largest family history community in the world, and helps users find other members who might be researching the same ancestors so they can compare notes and discover more together.

Other improvements in Family Tree Maker 2012 include:

• An easier-than-ever user interface to get users started right away
• Upgraded help content and video tutorials
• Improved content-generation and editing options to create engaging “Smart Stories” about family history and family members
• The ability to combine families into one harmonized tree, bringing step-families and adoptees into the main family tree
• Simple generation labels and text boxes to make family trees more interesting and informative

Expert users of earlier Family Tree Maker releases will find new power-user tools in Family Tree Maker 2012, including:

• Upgraded personalization capabilities enabling users to add their own images, adding narrative text and displaying explanatory generation labels to charts
• Index report of every individual in a family tree with birth, marriage and death dates
• Chart the line of descendancy between an ancestor and any descendant in your family tree

Pricing and availability

Family Tree Maker 2012 for PC starts at $39.99 and is now available to purchase online and at Best Buy, Office Depot, Amazon.com and other select retailers. Family Tree Maker for Mac is also available, and will include the TreeSync™ capability in the upcoming version slated to be released by the end of 2011.

(PLEASE NOTE: Internet access is required for all Web integration)

WHAT HAPPENED AT ROSWELL?

This U.S. government report makes a fairly convincing case that it wasn’t a visitation by aliens:

LINK

RORKE’S DRIFT

I have been fascinated by this 1879 battle ever since the first time I saw the movie Zulu, which starred Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, and a very fresh-faced Michael Caine. This article gives you a succinct overview of this David vs. Goliath clash of arms:

LINK

KINDLE BOOKS AT THE LIBRARY

You’ve maybe read one of my previous praises of the Amazon Kindle e-reader. Well, owning one just became an even better deal! Now I can borrow recent Kindle books from my local public library. Maybe you can, too—check here for libraries that offer the service:

LINK

JOHNSON COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SEMINAR

DATE: Saturday, October 22, 2011

TIME: Coffee & sign-in 7:45 a.m. Seminar adjourns 3:30 p.m.

LOCATION: Lenexa Community Center
13420 Oak Street
Lenexa, Kansas 66215

Paula Stuart-Warren, a native Minnesotan, is an award-winning lecturer, researcher,
writer, and consultant, and has worked full time in the area of genealogical and
historical research since the 1980s. She is a Certified Genealogist, actively involved researching in courthouses, state archives, public and university libraries, and historical societies all across the U.S. and brings that knowledge to her audiences.

Seminar topics:

* Newspaper Research: the Dailies, Weeklies, and Beyond--learn more about specialty newspapers and what they hold and where to find them.
* Tho’ They Were Poor, They May Have Been Rich in Records--private organizations and government agencies at many levels often have information on those poorer relatives
* Finding Ancestral Places of Origin--this lecture shares records and research strategies that may help you identify that place called home by your ancestors.
* A Baker’s Dozen: Easy Ways to Begin Writing Your Family History--anyone can write! Learn ways to get your family history in print without a lot of strain.

Free Parking

Fee: Members: $30; Non-members: $35; $10 Catered lunch available if you order by October 15.

Visit our website to get a registration form!

Questions? Contact us here.

2010 CENSUS DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE: NEW GEOGRAPHIES

We genealogists tend to prefer the historical census, but some of this current data may prove of interest:

Additional lower-level geographies--including ZIP code tabulation areas, school districts and census tracts--have been released for various demographic profiles. The demographic profiles were released by state down to the place level in May and provide statistics on topics such as age, race, Hispanic origin, sex, household relationship, household type, group quarters population and home ownership.

The new geographies for the demographic profiles are available on the Census Bureau's American FactFinder website.

LAND GIRL

A book available from the National Archives (UK)—currently on sale:

During World Wars I and II, Land Girls worked at agricultural tasks so that male farm workers could enter the British Army and Royal Navy. Some of the Land Girls had grown up on farms, but at least one-third of them were from London and other cities in Britain. A written guide was provided to help orient the “newbies” to their new lives as farm girls:

LINK

THE HITLER YOUTH

How did a rabid hatemonger manage to rise to a position of absolute power in Germany? One lesser-known but vital element in his ascension was the Hitler Youth organization:

LINK

DANISH IMMIGRATION MUSEUM

Take a look at the impressive website of this museum in Elk Horn, Iowa:

LINK

THE IRON HORSE AT WAR

One of the numerous reasons the North won: its railroads were better than those of the South—in pretty much every way imaginable:

LINK

VIETNAM TUNNEL RATS ASSOCIATION

Australia furnished approximately 700 so-called “Tunnel Rats” to the Vietnam War effort. Tunnel Rats were the guys who infiltrated the enemy’s elaborate system of underground tunnels, blowing up tunnels and killing enemy counterparts as necessary. The Aussie Tunnel Rats produce a most interesting online newsletter:

LINK

COMMUNITY AND CONFLICT: THE IMPACT OF THE CIVIL WAR IN THE OZARKS

Community and Conflict: The Impact of the Civil War in the Ozarks is a website established by the Springfield-Greene County Library District and other organizations to bring together Civil War era documents that illustrate the effects war had on people in the Ozarks.

LINK

MASCOUTAH TOWNSHIP CEMETERIES BOOK

The Mascoutah Township Cemeteries Book (St. Clair County, IL) includes Blum, Darnbrough, Fike, Jacobs, Lincoln Lake (Old Mascoutah City), Heinrich/Schnebelin and both the Old and New Holy Childhood of Jesus Cemeteries. It’s over 85 pages of more than 2,600 burials and is fully indexed. This book includes maps for Schnebelin, Mascoutah City, and the new Holy Childhood of Jesus Cemeteries. The cost is $15.00 postpaid.

This is a companion guide to the Mascoutah City Cemetery Book that was published January 2008. The new Mascoutah Township Cemetery Book will be available for purchase at the October 6, 2011 monthly meeting.

You may also order your Mascoutah Township Cemeteries Book. We will need your name, street address, city, state, zip+4, phone, and email. Mail this info plus your check for $15.00 for each book requested to: St. Clair County Genealogical Society, PO Box 431, Belleville IL 62222-0431.

For a complete list of our publications, please visit the SCCGS website.

Sincerely,

Diane Auth
Membership Chair
St. Clair County Genealogical Society

NSPACES

If your desktop is cluttered, and it’s not always easy to find the icon you need, nSpaces provides you with multiple desktops that you can divide in whatever way makes it easiest for you to find what you’re looking for:

LINK

ARE WE THERE YETI?

Text of a U.S. Foreign Service document that lists regulations pertaining to yeti-hunting expeditions in Nepal:

LINK

FOR WANT OF A NAIL: THE CONFEDERATE IRONCLADS

This author believes that more rebel ironclads, combined with a strategy that concentrated more on defense of Southern territory and less on advances into Union states, could have won independence for the CSA—and he just might be right:

LINK

THE SECOND BATTLE OF BOONVILLE

During this little-known battle on September 13, 1861, escaped slaves provided Union forces with information about an approaching Confederate force, and apparently took up arms against their former masters:

LINK

MERCHANT SEAMEN 1918-1941

This free index allows you to search for ancestors who may have served in the British Merchant Marine during 1918-1941. Index provides first and last name, city and county of birth, and year of birth. Viewing the original card that the index info was abstracted from will cost you—but most cards include quite a bit of additional information, and some include a photo of the merchant seaman:

LINK

AMERICA’S NATIONAL GAME

Digital collection of hundreds of early baseball photographs, from the collection of sporting goods tycoon Albert G. Spalding:

LINK

CIVIL WAR CASUALTIES

The Civil War casualties figure is generally pegged at 620,000, but a respected scholar is challenging that figure—he thinks 750,000 is a more accurate figure:

LINK

MAP WARPER

NYPL also is involved in a project the aligns present-day maps with historical maps in order to show similarities/changes/patterns:

LINK

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?

New York Public Library is harnessing the energies of its users to create online content. Users have thus far transcribed 10,000 menus from historical NYC eateries for NYPL’s What’s on the Menu page:

LINK

FREEBIES FOR PHOTO EDITING

If you need to do any photo editing, but don’t have the cash to purchase Photoshop, one of these free alternatives might be up to the task:

LINK

CIVIL WAR GHOSTS OF SOUTHWEST MISSOURI

A book by a Joplin attorney (and part-time ghost hunter) explores hauntings in the southwestern part of the “Show Me” state:

LINK

MILITARY GHOSTS

If ghosts really exist, it stands to reason that battlefields, military posts, and military hospitals are likely places for the occurrence of paranormal phenomena. Don’t bother starting a website on the subject, however: this guy is way ahead of you:

LINK

NEWS ON THE FIRE AT MU’S ELLIS LIBRARY

A fire in Ellis Library on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus might have caused catastrophic damage if not for the building’s sprinkler system:

LINK

SPRING PUBLISHER

If your business or organization has fairly simple desktop publishing needs (flyers, letterhead, business cards, and postcards), Spring Publisher may be your plenty-good-enough solution—and it’s free:

LINK

NOTE: Upgrading to Pro version costs less than $25!

NARA-KC EVENTS CALENDAR

What’s happening this month at NARA-KC:

LINK

MYHERITAGE.COM BUYS BACKUPMYTREE

19 September 2011

Dear Friends,

The news was released today: MyHeritage.com acquires yet another company – making this its sixth acquisition so far. This is a good sign of how the company’s global tech leadership and growth of its family history services is making it not only ‘one to watch’ as a start-up - but a massive force within the genealogy world.

MyHeritage is buying the industry’s primary backup service for genealogists – this is the first backup of its kind, specifically designed for protecting family tree data. It includes the world’s most experienced genealogists as its customers and has so far backed-up a whopping 9 terabytes of data!

Cliff Shaw, Founder and CEO of BackupMyTree is moving its focus towards its new venture, Mocavo.com. MyHeritage.com is the ideal home for BackupMyTree – we have massive resources to support it and share the common mission of preserving family history.

Feel free to reveal this great news to your readers, find more information and images attached, and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Daniel Horowitz
Chief Genealogist
MyHeritage.com

ANCESTRY.COM RELEASES THE 1930 MEXICO NATIONAL CENSUS

Access is Free to Public for Most Comprehensive Mexican Census Published Online

PROVO, UTAH – (September 16, 2011) – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced a significant addition to its growing collection of online Mexican and Hispanic historical records. With nearly 13 million records, the newly available 1930 Mexico National Census (El Quinto Censo General de Población y Vivienda 1930, México) is the most comprehensive historical Mexican census available online[1]. It is estimated that this census counted approximately 90 percent of the population, therefore for nearly 30 million Americans who can trace their families to Mexico, it provides a valuable gateway to begin researching Mexican family history, especially if family, vital or religious records are lost.

Mexico’s first formally recognized federal or national census was taken in 1895. Starting in 1900, censuses were taken every 10 years, making the 1930 Mexico Census the fifth official government census, or formally the Fifth General Census of Housing and Population. This particular census is significant in Mexican history as federal officials sought to make it a vehicle for national unity. A successful campaign urging citizens to take part as a civic duty resulted in an extremely high participation rate - the primary reason why the 1930 Mexican Census is considered the best Mexican census conducted in the 20th century.

The 1930 Mexico National Census provides a wide spectrum of details about individuals and families and can offer valuable insight into their lives. In addition to demographic data such as name, age, gender, birthplace, address and marital status, the census form also recorded nationality, religion, occupation, real estate holdings, literacy and any physical or mental defects. The millions of records in the collection reveal some interesting statistics about life in Mexico in 1930:

• The most common given female name was Maria and the most common given male name Juan.
• The three most common surnames were Hernandez, Garcia and Martinez.
• Nearly 18% of the population were recorded as Soltero [single], 11% were Casado por lo Civil y la Iglesia [civil and church marriage], 10% were Casado por la Iglesia [church marriage] and 8% were Union Libre [free union—living together without marriage].
• The four most populous Mexican states were Puebla, Veracruz, Jalisco and Oaxaca.

Famous Mexicans found in the collection include Maria Félix (1914–2002), who was among the best-known Mexican actresses and Carmello Torres Fregoso (Bernardo del Carmen Fregoso Cázares; 1927-2003), a renowned bullfighter who later became a successful businessman.

“As the United States is home to the second largest Mexican community in the world, Mexican-Americans comprise 10 percent of the total U.S. population therefore it is fitting that the world’s largest online family history resource now has an expansive collection to serve this important demographic,” said Josh Hanna, Ancestry.com Executive Vice President.

While the 1930 Mexico Census is the newest and largest collection of Mexican records on Ancestry.com, there are a number of other collections that may be helpful when conducting Mexican family history research, including Border Crossings: From Mexico to U.S., 1895-1957; Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, Mexico, Selected Parish Records, 1751-1880; and The Spanish-American Family History Guide.

To start researching the 1930 Mexico Census for free, please visit www.ancestry.com/.

SPEEDING UP YOUR POKEY COMPUTER

If it seems like your computer’s innards are lubricated with molasses, you can try speeding it up using these tips from Kim Komando:

LINK

SMILLA ENLARGER

Have a photo you’d like to enlarge, but don’t want to lose resolution/picture quality? Smilla Enlarger can’t work miracles (and doesn’t claim to), but it does a very nice job enlarging good quality originals:

LINK

MINIBIN

A free, easy-to-use alternative to Window’s Recycle Bin:

LINK

HESSE JEWELS HEIST

The incredible tale of three U.S. Army officers who almost succeeded in stealing $2.5 million in jewels (current value--$31 million) from Germany’s House of Hesse during the months following the end of World War II:

LINK

PDF MASHER

Need to convert a PDF file to a file suitable for an ebook reader? PDF Masher gets the job done—for free:

LINK

CREW LIST INDEX PROJECT

This website provides a number of free databases, including one searchable by name of vessel. That particular database includes every British ship registered from 1855 to the early 1950s:

LINK

NOTE: There is also an index to British vessels mentioned in books and periodicals.

RESTING SPOT

The creators of this website enable registered users to employ a unique combination of mobile and web technologies to add a photo of a tombstone/grave marker and its GPS location to an ever-expanding database. When you find a person or place in the database, you can click on the person’s name to see a photo and profile of that person. The profile can include a bio sketch, photos and/or videos, and names of family and friends. You can click on the cemetery name to see (when available) a Google Earth aerial photo of the cemetery, and click on "View a Map" to see a Google Maps listing for the cemetery.

LINK

FINAL STATEMENTS, 1862-1899

If you’re a military history nut, you will probably want to subscribe to Fold3 at some point. One collection available there is Final Statements, 1862-1899. It’s a digitization of the paperwork generated when a soldier in the Regular Army died during the period 1862-1899 (currently digitization is 96% complete). The amount of information provided for each soldier varies, but generally includes:

Name
Rank
Regiment & Company
Company Captain’s Name
Enlistment Place & Date
Place & Date of Birth
Place & Date of Death
Place & Date of Burial
Spouse’s Name & Residence
Inventory of Effects
Payment Due to Soldier’s Estate

Here’s a list of all collections currently available at Fold3 (nearly 76 million images and counting):

LIST

BRIEF SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER AND SUFFERINGS OF THE PILGRIMS

Brief Sketch of the Character and Sufferings of the Pilgrims (1820) by John Frost is available at the Internet Archive:

LINK

HISTORYPIN

What is it? It’s a place to share your historical photos, but it’s more than that. The best way to explain: go take a look:

LINK

WASHINGTON PARK CEMETERY REINTERMENTS

Genealogists searching for the burial places of African Americans have a new, free research tool available at the St. Louis City Recorder of Deeds and Vital Records website. The office has published indexing of 11,974 re-interments from Washington Park Cemetery, St. Louis County, one of the St. Louis region's largest African American cemeteries.

In 1996, the City of St. Louis acquired the northern part of Washington Park Cemetery for purposes of aviation obstruction removals and land use compatibility relating to the largest run-way at the city-owned Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

The City's Washington Park Cemetery North project included disinterment, transportation, and re-interment of the human remains buried in the affected areas. Twenty-three cemeteries in Missouri and Illinois were utilized. The City was required to record a report containing the name of each deceased person disinterred and location of reburial.

The 299 page report was recorded with the St. Louis City Recorder and Registrar and is now available online as the Washington Park Cemetery North Reinterment Index. In most cases, each entry includes the name of decedent; previous burial location at Washington Park Cemetery; reburial location- name of cemetery and section, lot, and grave number; date of relocation.

A contact list for the re-interment cemeteries is also provided on the City Recorder and Registrar's website.

The southern section of Washington Park Cemetery remains in private ownership. The City Recorder and Registrar have no burial records relating to those interments.

Persons with questions relating to the Index may call 314.589.8174.

THE 11-YEAR-OLD SPY

How did a German spy in Honolulu gather classified information on the comings and goings of U.S. Navy vessels? He dressed his 11-year-old son in a sailor suit, and the dynamic duo was invited onto numerous Navy vessels for “unofficial” tours:

LINK

NOTE: His 23-year-old daughter opened a beauty parlor in Honolulu that offered good service and undercut the prices of similar shops. What happened? Navy wives flocked in, and chatted with one another about the classified comings and goings of their husbands while in the chair.

FREEDOM BY THE SWORD

A new book history of the U.S. Colored Troops that a reviewer on the Government Book Talk Blog thinks is destined to become a classic:

LINK

RELAX: IT’S A GIFT!

I just received a DVD in the mail that chronicles the presidency of Barack Obama (please put aside for a moment your personal feelings about our President). Although I did not order this item, it contains something that looks very much like a bill unless you read all the fine print. If you wade your way through all that fine print, you’ll discover that the company involved (and I won’t name them, although I’m tempted to) acknowledges that I didn’t order this item. The fine print tells me that I can follow a fairly complicated process to return the DVD without paying the purchase price or return shipping. In this situation, what really am I obligated to do?

The company, of course, wants you to either:

1. pay up without even thinking about it; or
2. pay up rather than later get a dunning letter for this item you didn’t order and just threw away instead of returning to the company.

What can you do legally, however? According to Title 39, U.S. Code, Section 3009, you can:

1. mark the unopened package “Return to Sender” and return it free of charge.
2. open the package and, if you don’t like the item, throw it away; or
3. open the package, like what you find, and keep it as a free gift from that company.

Given the fact that the company in this case is trying to scare you/guilt you into paying for an item you didn’t order, I would suggest that you elect either Option #2 or Option #3. You might think Option #1 is also a good choice, since it also costs the company some money, but it also tells them that you, in fact, still live at that address, and invites future junk mail/unsolicited mail.

U.S. Postal Inspection Service

MoSGA JOURNAL TOC (Volume 31, No. 3)

There is Way More to Genealogy than Just Names, Dates and Relationships by Gene R. Block
The Life of Henry Valle transcribed by John M. Abney
Higbee (MO) News Extracts, 1904 (Part 3 of 4) transcribed by Kathy Bowlin
Mrs. Clarence (Botts) Neal Dead (1923) transcribed by Kathy Bowlin
Town Name Changes in Gentry and Worth Counties, Missouri by Cheryl A. Lang
60th Anniversary of James and Jane Hedden (1903) submitted by Kenneth E. Weant
Genealogical Record of America’s Indian Wars 1815-1858: An Introduction and Selected Bibliography by Tom Pearson
Old Settlers of Monroe County, Missouri (1885) transcribed by Robert W. Taylor
A Few Jefferson County Marriages That Were Recorded at the County Seat – Herculaneum transcribed by Carole Meltzer Goggin
The Grand Army of the Republic in Gentry and Worth Counties, Missouri transcribed by Cheryl A. Lang
E.M. King Obituary (1901) transcribed by Susan Burns
He Saved A.C. Sterett’s Life submitted by Kenneth E. Weant
I Ain’t Afraid of No Blog: Blogs and Blogging Demystified for the Befuddled Genealogist by Tom Pearson
Colored Marriages, Jefferson County, Missouri transcribed by Carole Meltzer Goggin
Death of Dr. Renfrow (1864) submitted by Kenneth E. Weant
African Americans Appearing on Civil War Draft Registration Registers for Missouri’s Third Congressional District by John M. Abney
Walter S. Harris Dead (1923) transcribed by Kathy Bowlin
Jefferson Barracks: Military Post, Hospital, and National Cemetery by Tom Pearson
Slave Extractions from Jefferson County Missouri Government Records by Carole Meltzer Goggin
Lock Nevins Accidentally Shot by His Cousin submitted by Kenneth E. Weant
The Witches of Salem: Researching Your High-Flying Ancestors by Tom Pearson
MoSGA’s 21st Century Grant Program: Morgan County Report by Martha L. Henderson
Genealogical Gleanings from The Missouri Telegraph, Fulton, Missouri submitted by Kenneth E. Weant
Book Reviews by Jean Foster Kelley

LIBERTY HALL VOLUNTEERS

A group of donors bought at auction the diaries of a Washington and Lee University alumnus who served for four years in the famed Stonewall Brigade. Alexander Sterrett Paxton and 99 other Washington and Lee students joined the Confederate Army shortly after the conflict began, and served until the end at Appomattox:

LINK

THE UNION’S SPY GAME

I teach a class on Civil War espionage, so I was delighted to discover this New York Times article on the subject:

LINK

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEW

Persistent online archive of back issues, 1914-1922:

LINK

Note: This periodical changed its name in 1964 to The Journal of American History.

RUTH ANN HAGER TO SPEAK IN WASHINGTON, DC AREA

Ruth Ann was an award winner at our Annual Conference in Columbia, Missouri in August 2011:

Library of Congress

Ruth Ann (Abels) Hager, CG, CGL, author of Dred & Harriet Scott, Their Family Story, will speak about her book at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, September 27, 2011, at noon in the Mary Pickford Theater, in the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Avenue, SE. Books for sale and signing will be available at the event. Hager will show key documents discovered in 2006 about Dred & Harriet Scott, the St. Louis slave couple whose freedom, along with their daughters', was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. Reaction to that historic decision fueled the growing unrest and was a contributing cause of the Civil War. Hager’s work combines research and family oral tradition, which family members shared for the first time. Published by St. Louis County Library and written with the support and endorsement of Scott descendants, the book is also endorsed by the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation.

For more information call the Local History & Genealogy Reading Room of the Library of Congress, 202.707.9928, or email ahjoh@loc.gov.

Roanoke Public Libraries

Ruth Ann (Abels) Hager, CG, CGL, will speak October 1, 2011, at 9 a.m. in the Patrick Henry Ballroom, 611 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke, VA. Her talk, “Dred & Harriet Scott: A Case Study in Finding Missing Links,” will examine the research methodology she used for her book, Dred & Harriet Scott: Their Family Story, and the resulting information it uncovered. Books for sale and signing will be available at the event.

Hager’s second talk, “Southern Claims Commission Research: A Basic Introduction,” will be at 11 a.m. For more information, contact Roanoke Public Libraries’ Virginia Room at 540.853.2073 or varoom@roanokeva.gov.

This Virginia Room Event is presented in celebration of Virginia Archives Month and is proudly sponsored by Harrison Museum of African American Culture, History Museum of Western Virginia, Hollins University, Norfolk & Southern Museum, Roanoke College, Roanoke Public Libraries, Salem History Museum, and The Patrick Henry.

MAINTAINING YOUR MAC

The Mac has a reputation for being a “bring it home, plug it in, forget about it” machine. And it’s true: Macs certainly are sleek, reliable workhorses that are less vulnerable to hackers than are Windows-based machines. Macs are not entirely maintenance free, however--and viruses can in fact be a problem for Mac users. Here are some tips for keeping your Mac in tip-top condition:

LINK

UPDATE TO THE GENEALOGY AND LOCAL HISTORY INDEX

The following sources have recently been added to Missouri History Museum’s Genealogy and Local History Index. To search the index globally, visit the main page. To browse or search one of the individual sources below, click on the link for that source.

1. Images in the annual reports of the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, 1896-1949 (incomplete run)

2. Watercolors by architect and artist F. Humphry W. Woolrych 1894-1895

Need to request a copy of a page/index from MHM? Contact Dennis Northcott!