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Who owns the genealogy? and Why?

In my last post, I addressed the question of who owns the genealogy?Ownership of the information is an interesting question. As an example,The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) microfilmed theSwedish Church records. A copy of the original microfilms is in theFamily History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Another copy went to theSwedish National Archives. The Archives then "sold" the rights to thesefilms to Genline.com. Genline then digitized the microfilm records andput them onl
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Randomness can be defined as events that happen outside predictability, prior knowledge and beliefs. I’ll start with an example. What has Paris Hilton done for the fine arts? The answer: NOTHING. And yet, she became the next big thing.

Now let’s take this concept to the world of publishing with the idea that a writer’s manuscript, deep within the bowels of the slush pile, is discovered at random – regardless of whether you are Hemingway resurrected or just another want-to-be writer with bad gram

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Who owns the genealogy?

During the past few posts, I have been examining who owns the genealogycompanies. What I find is a mixture of huge multinational corporationsand family owned businesses. I did have an ulterior motive in examiningthe ownership however, I had several larger issues to discuss and neededto know a little background before I jumped into the controversialarena. When you realize the diversity of the ownership of the largergenealogy companies, you can imagine extending the diversity to thehundreds of sma
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Cox Family of SC/NC

1 John Cox Abt. 1660
2 Charles or John Cox 1686 ?
3 Benjamin Cox 1720
4 John Cox 1750
5 Jesse Cox 1790
6 Needham J. Cox 1814 Horry County SC GGGFather
7 Needham J. Cox Jr. 1861 Horry County SC GGFather
8 Austin B. Cox 1898 Horry County SC GFather

This is my work in progress. Anyone else working this line?
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Down the home stretch on who owns the genealogy companies. This time Ilook at MyHeritage.com. Another ofthe non-U.S. companies, headquartered in "the beautiful village of BneiAtarot, near Tel Aviv, Israel, founded by German Templers in 1902 underthe name of Wilhelma." See MyHeritage. Unlikesome of the other genealogy companies I have recently reviewed,MyHeritage is extremely open. Their management page containsshort biographies of the officers and directors. It is difficult toascertain the actua
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A Post Card from a Stranger


Sometime in February 1945 my grandmother was shopping at Burrows and Sanborn, a department store in Lynn, Massachusetts. She dropped a letter to her son, my uncle, who was serving as an airman in Guam during World War II. A woman from Swampscott, Frances Ronzano, found the letter in the stairway and mailed it. Then this kind woman dropped a postcard in the mail to Nana, and let her know that her letter was on its way to her son.

The stationary is labeled, Mrs. John A. Ronzano, Jr. at 5 Shelton Ro

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Today I consider Genline.com, this isthe second of the bigger online genealogy businesses located outside ofthe United States. It has 18,224,911 images consisting of about 36.1million pages of Swedish Church records. Genline is located in theGloben area of metropolitan Stockholm, Sweden. Unless you have a directinterest in Swedish ancestors, it is unlikely that you have ever evenheard of Genline. Quoting from their website,

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Duke of HamiltonOne of Scotland's most senior noblemen, the Duke of Hamilton, has died, Buckingham Palace has announced.

Angus Douglas-Hamilton, the 15th Duke of Hamilton, died in his wife's arms in his home in the early hours of Saturday.

He was the premier peer of Scotland. The Duke's eldest son and heir uses the courtesy title Marquis of Douglas and Clydesdale. The courtesy title of the eldest son of the Duke's eldest son is Earl of Angus and the courtesy title of the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldes
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What is going on with FamilySearch?

In the not too distant past, I had a lot of news to share aboutFamilySearch. There were upgrades to New FamilySearch, new additions toRecord Search and whole lot of other things going on. Recently, thingshave apparently, at least from the perspective of an outsider, sloweddown considerably. I thought it might be a good idea to take stock andevaluate each of the more accessible websites from FamilySearch.

First, let's take a look at the parent organization, FamilySearch.FamilySearch is the tradena
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I have found Archie Kelley with wife Berniece in the 1930 Census in Quindaro, Kansas City Kansas with Children and other family. He is age 26 and born in Kansas. I can find no other information on this Kelley family. There other Kelley families scattered in Kansas and an archibald Kelley in Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri but the information on them does not match Archie and Berniece Kelley Family.

Any Help would be appreciated..

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An assortment of interesting names pulled from my database. Every one of them is an actual name!

I suppose that some of these names were fashionable in their own time. My name, Heather, is now a popular name, but when my mother first named me the pediatrician said “That’s a dog’s name!” (His mother raised Scots Terriers!)

- * -¸.•*¨*• * - ¸.•*¨*•* -

Onesiphorus Allen (1642-1718) my 8th Great Uncle, and his son Onesiphorus Allen, Jr. (b. 1674), other interesting Allen names are Bezaleel, Shearjash

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Biography of Captain Thomas Hemphill

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a ceremony commemorating the service of Captain Thomas Hemphill in the American Revolution. This biography, written by Mrs. Margaret Hemphill Anthony, was included in the program for the service, which was held at Old Siloam Cemetery, near Old Fort, NC, June 13, 1998.


“Thomas Hemphill, a son of . . . → : CONTINUE READING

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Yesterday, on the Association of Personal Historians Listserve, someone posted a question asking if anyone remembered an African proverb that was told to us by James Walsh. Walsh, a history professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, presented at the annual APH Conference in Nashville late in 2008. I’ve had this on my mind all day since that inquiry since I was at that conference and I too was struck by the power of that proverb.


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The proverb recognizes two spirits. “Sasha are spirits known

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A gold mine in Special Collections

After our adventure in finding Kerlin's Well, I took advantage of thefact that we were already in Northern Arizona to go to the NorthernArizona University, Cline Library, Special Collections and ArchivesDepartment. The book with the faded picture of Kerlin's Well was writtenby my Great-uncle, George Shepherd Tanner. See Tanner, George S. HenryMartin Tanner; Joseph City, Arizona Pioneer, Born June 11, 1852, SanBernardino, California, Died March 21, 1935, Gilbert, Arizona.1964. NAU's Special Colle
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Last two posts are on Kerlin's Well

In the last post, I told about our trip to Kerlin's Well where myGreat-grandfather carved his name in the rock back in 1877. In the firstpicture above you can see the rock and the names. The volcanic rock hasa dark weathered coating over the lighter rock making a perfect surfacefor writing names. There are quite few names on the rocks andsurprisingly few modern ones. If you were walking on the plateau abovethe canyon, you would not be able to see any portion until you wereright on top of the cli
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Pro Gen Study Group and APG

The Pro Gen Study group will meet at Jamboree. There will also be a Southern California APG meeting at Jamboree. Jamboree is only one week away. I can hardly wait! I will be meeting up with some of my friends from the San Diego Genealogical Society who plan to take the train. We took the train two years ago and it was a relaxing ride and the hotel for Jamboree was across the street. We could not all fit on the shuttle so some of us walked to the hotel. They were doing construction at the hotel b
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Ancestors Connect Us to History

I have a passion for America unmeasureable to anything else in life. I'm scared that our current politicians have forgotten the definition of words that make life truly worth living, such as freedom and democracy. My passion and love for my country came in elementary school when I was taught to have pride in my country. In private school, I was not taught a party line. I was taught about the rich history of this great nation, the good and the bad. My passion only grew when my maternal grandmothe

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