Saturday Serendipity (January 27, 2018)

Following an absence of two weeks while I worked on an article for Rhode Island Roots, the journal of the Rhode Island Genealogical Society (RIGS),  Saturday Serendipity returns this week with the following recommendations .  .  . 

1.  For Mayflower descendants from John Billington, Stephen Hopkins, or John Alden, NEHGS just announced this week that the fifth generation descendants from these passengers have been added to the database project in cooperation with the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.  You can read more about the project and the database through the American Ancestors website here.                

2.  The Director of the Great Migration Study Project, Robert Charles Anderson, is seeking help in finding a particular book published as a limited edition in England in 1999. The book is "The History of the Clinton Barony, 1299 - 1999," by Anne Austin. Mr. Anderson needs to consult it for his forthcoming book "Puritan Pedigrees: The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England" and he cannot find it in any U.S. library or via Amazon. If you have the book or could help him get access to a copy for his research, contact Lynn Betlock, editor of The Weekly Genealogist newsletter of NEHGS using the subject line "History of the Clinton Barony (TWG)."   

3.  During the most recent hiatus from Saturday Serendipity, I missed recommending an interesting post from Marian Wood of Climbing My Family Tree blog. I now recommend belatedly the intriguingly titled post, "Chicken Post or Egg Post." To find out why it is interesting and just what the title means, you will have to go here and read it.              
        
4.  James Tanner of Genealogy's Star blog posted another interesting and thought-provoking piece this week -- "Where is Genealogy Technologically-wise?"  Have a read here.

5.  I use Family Tree Maker as a backup to my Ancestry trees and so I always have a copy of my research residing on my own computer and not just in the Ancestry cloud. Since I run an iMac I got the much delayed, but eagerly awaited, FTM 2017 for Mac as soon as it finally became available. But I have not delved into the use of the new color coding feature (although I saw Russ Worthington of Family Tree Maker User blog discussing it at the FTM presentation booth at NERGC 2017 this past April). During this most recent hiatus, Elizabeth Handler of From Maine to Kentucky blog wrote about how she dove right in to the color coding feature when she got her FTM 2017 for Mac -- and about the surprising result it led her to.  If you use FTM 2017 and, like me, have not tried color coding yet, you too should read Elizabeth's "Tuesday Tip ~ Family Tree Maker Color-Coding" by going here.

6.  I have mentioned previously on this blog a weird and horrific New England disaster known as the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Last week (January 15th) was one year shy of the 100th anniversary of the freakish disaster that took place in Boston. If you have never heard of this awful event, you can learn more about it and see photographs of the aftermath here. 

7.  So everyone knows that the Bubonic Plague killed millions of people during various outbreaks that happened repeatedly over 500 years (and occasionally still happens), right? And everyone knows that the cause of the rapid spread of the killer disease was . . . RATS, right? Well, it turns out this might not be the case exactly. Scientists have been modleing the usual rat/flea transmission data and it turns out the rodent model does not match historical death rates. Hmmmm. Read here to find out what new data suggests as a perhaps more likely transmission vehicle.

8.  Amy Johnson Crow posted an interesting and useful piece about how to find an ancestors church. You can read the post here.               
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Copyright 2018, John D. Tew

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Saturday Serendipity (January 6, 2018)

Following a slight hiatus last week to celebrate the New Year (and mark my blogiversary on New Year's Eve), Saturday Serendipity returns this week with the following reading recommendations .  .  . 

1.  If you are a member of NEHGS (New England Historic Genealogical Society) and receive their quarterly magazine, American Ancestors, in hard copy or online, then you should be sure to read "How I Lost My Alcock, Bradfield & Whitehead Ancestors" by Patricia Law Hatcher in the most recent issue, vol. 18, no. 4 Winter 2018.  The article is a well-written example of how even very experienced genealogists can take a wrong turn and how diligence and devotion to "getting it right" results in both gains and losses.  [If you do not belong to NEHGS, consider joining and in the meantime see if your local library has a copy of American Ancestors.  More than New England is covered by American Ancestors!]               

2.  I do not tweet and never have. Even at the doubled length of 280 characters, I tend to think of Twitter as a very flawed means of communication that is degrading the use of our immeasurably rich language. I also have wondered if and how the increasingly never-ending accumulation of tweets would ever be worthy or capable of being captured for future generations.  It seems that the Library of Congress has also spent energy wondering the same thing and they have arrived at a decision. Read at Smithsonian Magazine online why the LOC has concluded that tweets have become too numerous and too long and so only tweets of "historic value" will be saved. One must wonder what the criteria will be for historically valuable tweets and -- for those genealogists who do tweet -- what tweets would be worth preserving as part of a genealogy.

3.  The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS mentioned a very interesting DNA story this week that was caught on CNN. Two men who have been friends for 60 years made an amazing discovery when one of them began using DNA tests to search for his biological father. Read the full story here.          
        
4.  James Tanner of Genealogy's Star blog has posted Part Three in his series "From Whence and to Thither -- Understanding Migration Patterns" here.  This is an interesting and informative mini-series and you can access Part One here and Part Two here.             
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Copyright 2018, John D. Tew

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