The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
On-line newsletter is helping genealogists keep up
This story was published Oct. 25, 1998
We live in exciting times. Genealogy and family history never have been so dynamic.
Technology is throwing change at us with ever-increasing speed.
Some of the change is behind the scenes, out of sight and mind. Other change is on our own desktops, in our own filing cabinets, in front of our own eyes.
For computerized genealogists, keeping up with emerging digital technologies has become almost impossible. If we weren't careful, by the time we got through keeping up with all the changes in genealogy, there wouldn't be any time left for genealogizing.
Fortunately, there's help. It comes, electronically, in the form of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, a weekly summary of events and topics of interest to on-line genealogists. On-line genealogists being those who use e-mail and the World Wide Web as one tool in their pursuit of ancestors.
The newsletter is written by Dick Eastman. He's the forum manager of the four Genealogy Forums on CompuServe and is editor of Genealogical Computing magazine. He also wrote YOUR ROOTS: Total Genealogy Planning On Your Computer published by Ziff-Davis Press.
I don't remember just when I started reading Eastman, but almost exactly a year ago I began electronically saving his weekly newsletters. They are chock full of worthwhile information.
Although the column is sponsored by Ancestry Publishing, which is in the business to make a buck, Eastman doesn't bombard you with Ancestry stuff. Rather, he reports on the whole industry. Indeed, he promotes products that compete with Ancestry.
For instance, the current issue (Oct. 17) contains a favorable report on Everton's Roots Cellar 1640-1990 on CD-ROM. Everton has produced genealogy books and magazines for more than 50 years. They're best known for a bimonthly magazine, Everton's Genealogical Helper. "Helper" was one of the first genealogy publications I was exposed to, so many years ago. It now has more than 50,000 subscribers.
Everton's main thing is publishing classified advertisements from genealogists seeking ancestors. In recent years these queries also have been placed in Everton's Computerized Roots Cellar.
Everton's Roots Cellar 1640-1990 CD lists more than 200,000 individuals who were the subjects of these queries.
Software and CD reviews are a main theme with Eastman, but he covers a broad variety of other topics that are, or should be, of interest to genealogists. Recent newsletters include:
An alert about threats to access to government records.
An advisory on the Tanguay Dictionary on CD-ROM, for those with French-Canadian ancestry. It contains the seven-volume Dictionnaire Genealogique des Familles Canadiennes. It records 250,000 baptisms and marriages in Quebec province.
Release of two major new CD-ROM Indexes by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Passenger and Immigration Lists Index 1538-1940 on CD-ROM.
George Washington's Letters Online.
A Genealogy Credit Card
Coming Events.
And many more subjects.
After the good information it contains the best thing about the Eastman letter is the fact that it is free to those who can receive it via e-mail.
You can read both current and back issues on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ancestry.com/ columns/eastman/index.htm
To receive it via e-mail, send an e-mail message to:
listservpeach.ease.lsoft.com
The message title is unimportant.
The first line of text in the message must have the words SUBSCRIBE ROOTSCOMPUTING followed by your first and last names. For instance, if your name is Jane Doe, you would write a message of:
subscribe rootscomputing Jane Doe
Nothing else should be in the message text.
I heartily recommend Eastman's newsletter. My must-read list is very small, but this newsletter is on it.