Jury Summons becomes Genealogical Adventure

As luck would have it, my jury group was given a two hour lunch today, so after grabbing a quick bite, I went across the street from the Union County Court House and visited the Elizabeth Public Library's new Elizabeth Room. This local history room was opened in mid-September and was filled with many interesting items.

Materials include a variety of books, The Elizabeth Daily Journal and its index, which was completed by Elizabeth Public Library, a pretty complete series of city directories going back to the late 1800's, maps, photos, high school yearbooks and other records of local interest. A microfilm machine is dedicated to the room, as well as new furniture and a computer. The Local History Room has been made possible with support from the Trustees of The Josephine Ebbe Kenah Trust.

I found some interesting items that will be added to my Family Tree Connection database, including an Elizabeth Police Department report from 1927, three Elizabeth Fire Department reports (for 1902, 1903-4 and 1905), a 1907 yearbook for the Elizabeth Board of Trade, and a bunch of other local items of genealogical interest.

So, what I expected to be a long, boring day, turned in to something quite unexpected. Many of the items I photocopied will be indexed and uploaded next Monday (Nov. 5, 2007).

No News is Still Good News, Right?

The other day someone told me that I was wasting my time by scanning and indexing war ration books that had little (or no) information on them. I tried to explain to him that as a genealogist, it is better to know that a document does in fact exist, but has little informative value, than in endlessly wondering how to locate it. He didn't accept my argument.

Don't genealogists have to accept that along the way they will encounter genealogical duds? I have a death certificate of a female ancestor and the maiden name is blank. I was certainly bummed when I got the document, and even more confused when I saw that the witness (i.e. person providing the information) was the woman's son! He didn't even know that detail about his mother. Up until that point, getting that death certificate was my sole quest. Once I saw it, even though it was disappointing, I was able to move on.

Ration books have so many cool pieces of information (when they are filled out properly), which is much like so many other documents genealogists crave. When I acquire these documents, I don't always know how complete they will be, and I see no reason not to scan/archive the ones which are lacking.

Ration books are also somewhat unique in that they have series and serial numbers on them, so even the blank ones can yield relationship information by noting the books that are in the same series and serial number range. You may not be able to tell who were the parents, but you'll have a good idea that they were all in the same household.

I was always fascinated by the Columbo movies. As a detective, Columbo was able to piece together a murder mystery with the smallest of clues. As a genealogist, sometimes these partial documents can be just as important.

Genealogical duds are a fact of life for researchers. If you can think of a better argument for me NOT to scan/index these partial documents, I'd love to hear it.

Genealogy is Boring. Say What?

I was browsing around the other day and stumbled upon an article where the writer, Mike Elgan, starts out by saying, "I've always found genealogy boring." I've always considered genealogy to be one of the most passionate hobbies around. Connecting with pieces of your heritage brings out so many different emotions.

Then, after the shock of his statement wore off, I began to wonder if what he really meant was that online genealogy was boring -- or more accurately, frustrating. I do find it somewhat challenging to conduct research online when all of the information you need to search is stored in a variety of different "islands." There is no meta-genealogy search engine, and that's what Mike was speculating about in his article.

He ponders, "Is combining all genealogy data too scary?" I don't think so. Just like anything in life, there will be bad people who take advantage of improved access to information. Genealogists would certainly benefit from the efficiency of being able to access information from a variety of online databases in a single search.

Recently, a friend asked for some help in tracking down any immigration information regarding her grandfather. It was a simple request, but it took me over an hour to make the rounds (Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords.com, GenealogyBank.com and Footnote.com) before I located a relevant document. It must be challenging for some researchers to contend with the different search techniques required to find information at each of these (and other) sites.

Will it take a company like Google to persuade our industry to provide open interfaces to their databases? The databases of my company, Genealogy Today, are small in comparison to the other players, but I'm ready to join the bandwagon and would be willing to develop an XML interface.

Are Genealogy Bloggers Newsworthy?

After a couple of hours putting together a Genealogy Bloggers Roll (as I couldn't find any existing pages that made it easy to find the blog for a specific person, and I know many of the people, but often cannot remember their blog names), I began to wonder if the views and opinions of these folks are newsworthy? By newsworthy, I mean would people appreciate getting a consolidated recap of the most interesting items of the week.

A while back, Paul Allen's team (as part of his Provo Labs initiative) put together an interesting meta-blog called the Genealogy Blog Planet, which allows you to read the latest news from over 50 different genealogy blogs on one page. This approach uses technology to combine RSS feeds, and while that solves one problem (i.e. not having to visit 50 different blogs), it doesn't add any editorial value because it simply combines the blogs and doesn't filter out the most interesting items.

On our GenWeekly.com web site, we blog about items that we find in newspapers and sent to us as press releases, but we've not mentioned items from other genealogy bloggers. Are blog posts less credible because they aren't reviewed by editors and published in print?

With syndication technology (i.e. RSS aggregators) being adopted so rapidly, perhaps the traditional value added by publishers was overlooked. The news industry has the Associated Press, who pump out hundreds of stories everyday, and most (if not all) news organizations subscribe to their feed. BUT, the various news organizations pick up and use a subset of the articles that they feel would appeal most to their readers. The Internet doesn't have anything comparable for genealogy blogging.

So would it be considered "reporting", if Genealogy Today began highlighting the most interesting blog posts of the week?

Leaving No Stone Unturned

If you like to watch people, they call you a people-watcher. So, I guess that makes me a google-watcher. I like to reading every news release they put out, and I'm seeing a trend when it comes to advertising.

When the Internet became popular some proclaimed that all other forms of advertising would become obsolete. Well, ten or so years later and Google is poking around in many of those traditional media channels. Now with Internet radio that can be listened to from any computer or streamed down to your cellular phone, is radio advertising going to have a resurgence?

In March 2006, listeners to the classic oldies station WMTR-AM 1250 heard the first Genealogy Today radio commercial [ mp3 ] as I expanded my offline marketing efforts. Months after the ad campaign finished in July, people were still commented how they had heard about my site on the radio.

Now we're in 2007, and with the launch of Family Roots Radio, I see another excellent and very vertical advertising opportunity. Of course, I am biased being responsible for the marketing of the show. But, setting that aside, I'm excited to see how Internet radio performs against the traditional airwaves. Do people listen to Internet stations all day long?

Family Roots Radio is going to be broadcast on Modavox's VoiceAmerica Channel, which has been broadcasting since 1999 and is the largest network of Internet Talk Radio stations. Modavox already knows how to monitor and track listeners, and they will tell us the exact number of impressions delivered to the show. A recent Arbitron report noted that over 50% of Internet users consume streaming media!

As Family Roots Radio launches tomorrow, I'll be running that same ad and it will be interesting to see if it gets a better response. WMTR-AM 1250 also had a stream of their shows, so even though it was a N.J.-based station, the listeners spanned the country.

What's next? Perhaps some video advertising, comparing the power of cable to the phenomenon of YouTube.

A Friendly Game of Tag

Randy Seavers (Genea-Musings blog) has been promoting a very interesting, almost viral, method for identifying and highlighting genealogy blogs and the people who operate them. Kudos Randy! As I've blogged in the past, one of my pet peeves are anonymous genealogy sites. It's great to see webmasters and blogmasters step up to the challenge and share some facts about themselves.

According to the rules, when you're tagged, you're supposed to blog "Five Things You Didn't Know About Me," and then tag other bloggers.

So, I've been tagged by my good friend, Lorine McGinnis Schulze (Olive Tree Genealogy blog), and am certainly up for the "challenge". It's a challenge to reflect upon oneself and reveal FIVE interesting facts about one's life.

1. I've always loved music, so when I went to college, joining the radio station, WJRH 90.5 FM, was a natural step. After two years of on air experience, and being selected to be the Production Manager, I was offered a job at WQQQ Q100 FM, and became Lloyd London for two years. I considered a career in broadcasting, as a junior I was the college station Programming Director, and as a senior, Station Director.

2. Having grown up without pets (Mom only liked cats, Dad only liked dogs), but loving animals, when I left the nest I couldn't wait to get a pet. The confines of a college dorm room limited my options, but a girlfriend at the time presented me with a hamster we names Daisy. The years of animal denial led me to seek the opposite extreme, so within a few months, my dorm room was overcrowded with a dozen little critters. I have photos somewhere. If I can dig them up, I'll post a photo of Daisy.

3. When I was a junior in high school, the first computer lab was created with TRS-80's. I was interested, but the class was offered only to the freshmen. My physics teacher had two Commodore PET's in his office, so my friend Gordon Accocella and I begged to get access to them -- during physics class, of course. The teacher made us a deal, that if we could maintain an A average in his class, we could sneak back to the PET's, and we would have to participate in every experiment lesson.

4. My wife, Elaine (pictured right), and I attended the same college and were in the same graduating class. We knew of each other by name, but never really crossed paths. During Senior Week, one of my AXP fraternity brothers told me he wanted to go on a date with this girl (Elaine), but she wouldn't go alone. So, he wanted me to come along as a date for her friend. Suffice it to say, the relationship between him and Elaine didn't flourish. Instead I spent every possible minute of that last week on campus with her, and 20 years later we're still together!

5. My genealogy websites started out as an experiment. I was working for a conservative financial company as an IT professional. In 1985, when the Internet started becoming popular, I was given the responsibility of handling my employer's web site. I loved to read trade magazines, and was learning of all these cool things you could add to your site, but felt they weren't appropriate for the company web site. So, I figured I aught to create my own web site and decided to put my family tree online at D'Addezio.com. Being of Italian descent, I wanted to include some information about Italian genealogy, but found the Internet to be too disorganized, which led me to expand the site focusing on the topic. As I tried different techniques and Internet tools/services, the site grew and eventually I launched a separate site that would be handled as a professional company called Genealogy Today. That was in 1999, and five years later I would quit my day job and focus on the site as my full time occupation.

What I love about these five things is that they really contributed to the person I am today. I've learned so much from the diverse experiences of my life, and am truly enjoying my current role as an archivist, preserving our past for genealogists.

I would like to tag Kenneth G. Aitken, whose blog I read regularly. Ken does a really nice job of focusing on the educational aspect of genealogy. I'd also like to tag Paul Allen (the lesser), who we all know as the founder of Ancestry.com. And since Paul is such a prolific blogger and tells so much about himself, it would be interesting to see if he is up to the challenge of sharing FIVE things that we don't already know!

Randy has been keeping a list of the genealogy bloggers who've been tagged and responded.

P. S. Many people have asked about the photo of myself with the dog. It was taken in a professional studio, an experience we've exposed all of our pets to. His name was Maximillian, and he past away in 2003 from a heart tumor at the young age of eight. We have another dog, and I've had a portrait done with him (his name is Moon), but he's just not as interested in what I do in the office all day. Max used to stay at my feet under the desk, and prodded me to take breaks (i.e. so he could go outside and have a break as well). I credit Max with helping prevent me from getting carpal tunnel syndrome during the years when I was doing a lot of typing while creating my sites.

Does Size Matter?

As part of a large update to the Family Tree Connection database that finished this morning, an 1894 graduation item with just THREE seniors was added. It was for the Fairfield High School in Maine, and the surnames were WARREN, CHASE and HATCH. I love these kinds of items, and there are hundreds of them in the database. First, you have to wonder just how many copies of this little document did they print, and then how many have survived 113 years later!

For the past four years I've been on a quest to gather up as much of our ancestral history as possible with the goal of making these treasures available online for genealogists. I like the term "public collections", as while I am collecting these items, they're being shared.

Of course, the hidden agenda is that I hope to find some neat items like this about my own ancestors. How cool would it be to know that not only did you ancestor graduate, but at the ceremony they read "Hiawatha's Wooing" by Longfellow as one of the students did according to this program.

So, while everyone "oohs and ahhs" when a document with thousands of names gets uploaded, I think the real exciting items are the ones with fewer names, and from more obscure locations.