CNN: Census Bureau to halt counting operation a month earlier than expected. “It’s a sign that the Trump administration has abandoned its plan to extend the window for counting the nation’s population, which it earlier said needed to be longer because of the coronavirus pandemic. To be counted, households must complete the survey by September 30, rather than October 31, as the Census Bureau had announced when it adjusted plans due to the virus. The bureau will also end its labor-intensive efforts to knock on the doors of households that have not filled out the survey online, by paper form, or by phone.”
genealogy
OneZero: The Era of DNA Database Hacks Is Here
OneZero: The Era of DNA Database Hacks Is Here. “On the morning of July 19, hackers accessed the online DNA database GEDmatch and temporarily allowed police to search the profiles of more than 1 million users that were previously not accessible to law enforcement. GEDmatch is a genealogy tool that allows users to upload their DNA profiles generated from genetic testing services like 23andMe, Ancestry, and MyHeritage and search for relatives. It took three hours until GEDmatch became aware of the breach and pulled the site offline completely. Users have to give permission for their profiles to be included in police searches, but the breach overrode privacy settings and made user profiles on the site visible to all other users, including law enforcement officials who use the site.”
BetaNews: Ancestry. com claims no harm from security vulnerability in Family Tree Maker
BetaNews: Ancestry.com claims no harm from security vulnerability in Family Tree Maker. “If you’re at all familiar with genealogy then you’ll likely know both Ancestry and Family Tree Maker — they an integral part of the pastime. Unfortunately, independent review site WizCase recently discovered an open and unencrypted ElasticSearch server that belonged to Software MacKiev, the owners of Family Tree Maker. The leak exposed thousands of records including email addresses, user locations, and other sensitive personal information. FTM was owned by Ancestry.com until 2016 when Software MacKiev took it over, and the software is still used to upload databases to the Ancestry online trees.”
Courthouse News: African Ancestry Data Offers Deeper Examination of History of Slavery
Courthouse News: African Ancestry Data Offers Deeper Examination of History of Slavery. “The transatlantic slave trade officially ending in the 19th century, but the effects of that brutal system continue to reverberate in the genes of enslaved people’s ancestors, according to a new study. Pairing genetic data with historical records, researchers at 23andMe can now paint a clearer picture of African ancestry in the New World, detailing the origins of enslaved Africans and the methods used to exploit them after they survived the grueling Middle Passage.”
BuzzFeed News: A Security Breach Exposed More Than One Million DNA Profiles On A Major Genealogy Database
BuzzFeed News: A Security Breach Exposed More Than One Million DNA Profiles On A Major Genealogy Database. “First GEDmatch, the DNA database that helped identify the Golden State Killer, was hacked. Then email addresses from its users were used in a phishing attack on another leading genealogy site.”
University of Connecticut: UConn Library, School of Engineering to Expand Handwritten Text Recognition
University of Connecticut: UConn Library, School of Engineering to Expand Handwritten Text Recognition. “The UConn Library and the School of Engineering are working to develop new technology that applies machine learning to handwriting text recognition that will allow researchers to have improved access to handwritten historic documents. Handwritten documents are essential for researchers, but are often inaccessible because they are unable to be searched even after they are digitized. The Connecticut Digital Archive, a project of the UConn Library, is working to change that with a $24,277 grant awarded through the Catalyst Fund of LYRASIS, a nonprofit organization that supports access to academic, scientific, and cultural heritage.”
The Collegian: Digital archive of East End Cemetery to be released in August
The Collegian: Digital archive of East End Cemetery to be released in August. “The East End Cemetery Collaboratory will release a primary version of a digital repository of information about the people interred at East End Cemetery in August, said Collaboratory leaders from the University of Richmond. East End Cemetery, a historic African American burial ground, is located on the border of Henrico County and the city of Richmond.”
Genealogy’s Star: Reclaim the Records wins FOI fight for 19th and 20th Century Yonkers, New York Birth and Death Records
Genealogy’s Star: Reclaim the Records wins FOI fight for 19th and 20th Century Yonkers, New York Birth and Death Records. “After literally years of negotiating and haggling (although luckily stopping short of yet another lawsuit), we are pleased to announce the first-ever publication of tens of thousands of late nineteenth and early twentieth century births and deaths for Yonkers, New York. We’ve photographed the alphabetical indices, and for most years we were able to photograph the full birth and death registers, too!”
New: Online Genealogy Consultations with Family History Library Experts (FamilySearch Blog)
FamilySearch Blog: New: Online Genealogy Consultations with Family History Library Experts. “Humans have an innate need to know their identities—who their ancestors are and where they come from. Finding that past sometimes requires individualized expert assistance. Now such assistance is available worldwide—for free—through FamilySearch.org, regardless of location or research question. Anyone can share the vast resources and expert services of the Family History Library by scheduling one-on-one online consultations. Genealogical specialists talk with guests in English and Spanish and will soon be available in other languages as well.”
163 veterans’ graves have been located in the Smokies. A new database is helping honor them (Knox News)
Knox News: 163 veterans’ graves have been located in the Smokies. A new database is helping honor them. “From the American Revolution to the Vietnam War, countless Tennesseans have sacrificed their lives for the United States. Some are remembered with extravagant headstones — others with small rocks marking their graves. But no matter what, Joe Emert told Knox News, ‘we just can never forget our veterans.’ Emert is an organizer for a project launched in January to discover and document veterans buried in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on both the Tennessee and North Carolina sides.”
MakeUseOf: The Best Free Family Tree Templates for Microsoft Word and Excel
MakeUseOf: The Best Free Family Tree Templates for Microsoft Word and Excel. “There are websites available that can help you research your ancestors. So if you’d like to create your own family tree, with the details you already have, that you can build on with your research, these templates are ideal. Here are several terrific family tree templates for Microsoft Word and Excel for both adults and kids.”
Jerusalem Post: Data of over 61,000 Turkish Jewish gravestones online in new database
Jerusalem Post: Data of over 61,000 Turkish Jewish gravestones online in new database. “An ambitious project has been launched online, documenting Jewish gravestones in Turkey.
The project, entitled ‘A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990’ contains the details of over 61,022 Jewish tombstones spread across Turkey, which makes it one of the largest tombstone databases in the world – covering over 400 years of Turkish Jewish life.”
Everyday Heroes: Bountiful resident wants to memorialize every soldier who died during WWII, looking for help (Standard-Examiner)
Standard-Examiner: Everyday Heroes: Bountiful resident wants to memorialize every soldier who died during WWII, looking for help. “[Don] Milne, 59, of Bountiful, recently launched a nonprofit called ‘Stories Behind the Stars,’ an ambitious project that aims to compile short histories of all of the 400,000 plus American soldiers who died during WWII. The histories would be searchable, by name, from an online database Milne is creating. He says he’s also developing a smartphone app that would link to the database and allow people to scan names from war memorials and headstones, then instantly be taken to a particular soldier’s biography. A self-described ‘history buff,’ particularly of WWII, Milne has been blogging and writing military bios for fallen soldiers of the war pretty much every day for that past three years. So far, he’s written about 1,200 profiles, piecing the stories together mainly through sources he’s found online. “
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: More than 100 years of African American funeral programs now online
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: More than 100 years of African American funeral programs now online. “The Digital Library of Georgia recently added more than 3,000 African American funeral home programs from Atlanta and throughout the Southeast to its vast collection of online sources. The programs span from 1886 to 2019 and can be great sources of information for genealogists. The materials that were digitized were contributed by the Auburn Avenue Research Library of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, the Wesley Chapel Genealogy Group and the Metro-Atlanta Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. Funding came from Georgia HomePlace, a program of the Georgia Public Library Service.”
NBC12: Digital map provides access to historic African-American cemetery online
NBC12: Digital map provides access to historic African-American cemetery online. “A digital map will be providing online access to East End Cemetery, a historic African-American burial ground in Henrico. Built by the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab, Department of Geography and the Environment, and Spatial Analysis Lab, the map features drone-captured imagery and GPS data points collected by hundreds of students and volunteers organized by the Friends of East End.”
