Happy New Year 2016

Thank you to all the blog readers throughout this year. Here's wishing you the very best for 2016, and I hope you break all those genealogy brick walls down !!

How to Print to PDF

A newsletter reader asked today, “How can I save an image on a web site, such as a census page image, as a PDF file?” I decided to answer here in the newsletter in case someone else has the same question.
The short answer is, “there are several methods of saving images to PDF files.” However, I will expand on that with longer answers below. First, you need to save the image to your computer’s hard drive in almost any format. With most web pages, that means saving it in the same format that is used on the web site. Then you need to convert it to PDF. In many programs, that is called “print as PDF.”

The following is for converting specific images, not for saving entire web pages as PDF files. I will later tell how to save entire web pages as PDF files.

Saving the image

In most web browsers, go to the web page of interest, move the mouse icon over the image you wish to save, right click with the mouse, and select “Save image as…” You will then need to select where to save it and also give the newly-saved file a name. On my Mac computer I keep a folder called Downloads where I place all newly-downloaded files. This is also the default folder for downloads on most Windows computers. Then I can later convert any file in that folder to whatever format I wish and save it to an appropriate folder for long-term storage. Every few weeks or so I delete all the older files in the Downloads folder as I no longer need them. You might want to do something similar just to keep things organized.

Macintosh

Apple includes all the needed PDF software with every Mac. Use Finder to go to the Downloads directory (or wherever you saved the image), double-click on the image and wait for it to display on your screen. Unless you have changed your system settings, the image will be displayed in Preview. Within Preview, select FILE in the upper left corner, then select PRINT. A new pop-up window will appear. Click on PDF, and then select “Save as PDF” from the selection list that appears. Follow the menus, and your new PDF file will be saved wherever you specified.

Windows

Microsoft does not include PDF software in Windows although some companies that manufacture computers that use the Windows operating system have added this capability to their systems. Microsoft created the company’s own version of portable document files, called XPS. However, XPS files never became very popular, and you rarely find XPS files on web pages. In any case, a number of third-party companies have created software to add the capability of creating PDF files on any Windows computer.

Probably the most expensive and full-featured solution for creating PDF files on Windows is to install Adobe Acrobat.

NOTE: You will need the full version of Adobe Acrobat, not the free Adobe Reader that only displays existing PDF files.

Adobe Acrobat sells for $449, or you can opt for a monthly subscription for $19.99 a month. Due to Adobe’s high prices and the available products from Adobe’s competitors, I would never purchase Adobe Acrobat. However, if you are interested, you can learn more at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.html.

doPDF is a FREE Windows program that will create PDF files. Once installed, it creates a new, “virtual printer driver” in your computer that is called doPDF. You print to this “printer” exactly as you print to a regular printer: with the desired document open on your computer, click on File –> Print and select doPDF from your list of printers. When you then click on Print, the result will be a PDF file, not a printed piece of paper. You can find doPDF at http://www.dopdf.com.

CutePDF Writer is a popular free “print to PDF” product that operates in much the same manner as doPDF. The same company also sells (for $49.95) CutePDF Professional, which adds capabilities such as the ability to create PDF booklets, combine multiple PDF files into one, add watermarks, edit forms, add comments, add headers and footers, rearrange pages, security, digital signature, scan, FTP, and more. I suspect most genealogists will be satisfied with the free version. Details may be found at http://www.cutepdf.com/.

PrimoPDF is also a very popular free program to create PDF files with Windows. The company’s web site claims that PrimoPDF has been downloaded more than 27 million times. The company also sells other products to convert PDF files to Word format, to edit existing PDF files, and more. Again, I suspect most genealogists will be satisfied with the free version. Details about PrimoPDF may be found at http://www.primopdf.com/.

You can find quite a few other programs that will create PDF files on a Windows computer. The above list is simply a list of the more popular products and are ones that I know will work well. A quick Google search will undoubtedly find other PDF products as well although I may not be as familiar with each of them.

If you have any of the above products, you can convert almost anything that appears on your screen into a PDF file, including web pages. In fact, the same will usually work for Microsoft Word, Excel, Facebook, and many, many more applications. In most cases, use the web browser (or Word or Excel or whatever application you choose) as normal. To save to a PDF file, select FILE in the upper left corner, then select PRINT and choose “Save as PDF.” (The exact wording might be slightly different, depending upon which print-to-PDF product you have installed. However, the wording should be close to “Save as PDF.”)

Save an entire web page as a PDF file

If you have none of the above products installed but wish to save a web page as a PDF file, you can use the Web2PDF web site to create PDF files for you. This free, cloud-based service will read any publicly-available web page and convert it to a PDF file which you can then save on your own computer. It won’t save password-protected pages, however, as the service has no method of logging onto such pages. You can learn more about this free service at http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/.

The Chrome web browser also has a built-in method of saving web pages to PDF files. You do not have to install any special software in your computer nor any extensions in your browser because Google Chrome itself acts as the PDF writer. Open any web page inside Google Chrome, press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P if you are on a Mac) to open the Print dialog, and change the destination. The entire web page will be saved to your computer as a PDF file. My experience with creating PDF files from the Chrome browser is that resultant PDF files often are not an exact copy of the original. Formatting tends to be erratic. I would suggest using one of the above programs instead of the Chrome browser whenever possible. I bet you will then be happier with the results.

Summation

The above methods are quick and easy solutions to creating PDF files. However, once created, PDF files can be changed, appended to, converted, extracted, and more. One resource that I use frequently is the PDF Tutorial at http://www.labnol.org/software/adobe-pdf-guide-tutorial/6296/. It has very brief descriptions of things that can be done with PDF files and, in many cases, links to more detailed descriptions of the various tasks.

Have fun with PDF!
(D Eastman)

What Kind of Genealogist Are YOU ?

A great read today from Legacy and Lorine McGinnis Schulze. Do you recognize yourself ? 

My husband and I are very different genealogists. I love research. I love the challenge of the hunt, the mystery waiting to be solved. I'll research anyone's ancestry just to have the thrill of following the clues. I just love solving the puzzle. Of course I also love finding my own ancestors! 

 My husband however dislikes research. He finds it tedious and a lot of work.  He loves finding an ancestor, or better yet, having someone else find that ancestor for him. He's passionate about his ancestry, but avoids the actual research whenever possible. Family lore is enough for him and he feels no need to find sources to verify that lore. If it's important enough to him, he'll force himself to push through the research but he'd rather I did it for him. He always says that if he were rich, he'd hire someone to do all the research for him. 

 I'd hate that, and in fact I often feel bad that I'm doing so much that I'm not leaving my grandchildren the fun of the hunt! 

 It seems to me that there are several types of genealogists -

The Hunter or Detective: This genealogist loves the research. While they want to find their own ancestors, they'll research anyone's ancestry just for the thrill of the hunt. They are easily sidetracked from their own ancestral research by the challenge of solving a stranger's brick wall.

The Gatherer or Ancestor Collector: This genealogist loves to know about their ancestors but doesn't really enjoy the hunt. He/she is happy to have others share what they have found.

The Ancestor Finder: This genealogist loves it all - doing the actual research and finding that elusive ancestor but they only enjoy researching their own family tree, not the ancestry of strangers. 

The Hoarder: This genealogist does lots of research, finds new things about their ancestors but refuses to share any of the information.

The Junkyard Collector: This genealogist gets excited over online Family Trees and merges them with his/her own. He/she never verifies anything or checks their facts. Before long they have a mess of unsourced information, conflicting data and facts that don't make sense. They'll have female ancestors having children at the age of 100, or men born 50 years after their spouse or children born before their parents. 

The Scholar: This genealogist lives and breathes source citations.  Accuracy is everything to this research. You'll often find this person submitting articles to scholarly journals as the New York Genealogial and Biographical Record. Page after page of red edit marks from the editors don't intimidate them. They'll plow through their article drafts, refining and revising and making each more accurate than the last.

The Analyzer: This genealogist finds a new fact, then studies it and analyzes it carefully before moving on to the next bit of research. They use each fact as a stepping stone to more research. They verify every piece of information they find and they view it critically, thinking about what it actually means and what other clues might be gleaned from it. 

The Planner: This genealogist is a faithful keeper of research logs. He/she creates research plans and follows them. They are extremely organized in their research and meticulous about planning before they go on a research trip

The Writer: This is the genealogist who is driven to write the stories of the ancestors. Some publish the books they write and offer them for sale, others write only for their family.

 I'm not judging any specific type as the best or the worst except the junkyard collectors who make me shudder and shake my head in bewilderment. 

 Some of us may fit more than one category. I am definitely a Hunter-Detective and a Writer but I'm also a little bit of a Scholar. I don't live and breathe source citations but I have submitted articles to scholarly journals and I've faced the red editing pen with determination. I'm also an Analyzer.  My husband on the other hand is a Gatherer. He doesn't seem to fit any other categories. 

 Where do you fit in?

Lorine McGinnis Schulze is a Canadian genealogist who has been involved with genealogy and history for more than thirty years. In 1996 Lorine created the Olive Tree Genealogy website and its companion blog. Lorine is the author of many published genealogical and historical articles and books.

 

Coined Traditions

Coins Left on Tombstones

While visiting some cemeteries you may notice that headstones marking certain graves have coins on them, left by previous visitors to the grave.
These coins have distinct meanings when left on the headstones of those who gave their life while serving in America's military, and these meanings vary depending on the denomination of coin.
A coin left on a headstone or at the grave site is meant as a message to the deceased soldier's family that someone else has visited the grave to pay respect. Leaving a penny at the grave means simply that you visited.
A nickel indicates that you and the deceased trained at boot camp together, while a dime means you served with him in some capacity. By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the soldier when he was killed.
According to tradition, the money left at graves in national cemeteries and state veterans cemeteries is eventually collected, and the funds are put toward maintaining the cemetery or paying burial costs for indigent veterans.
In the US, this practice became common during the Vietnam war, due to the political divide in the country over the war; leaving a coin was seen as a more practical way to communicate that you had visited the grave than contacting the soldier's family, which could devolve into an uncomfortable argument over politics relating to the war.
Some Vietnam veterans would leave coins as a "down payment" to buy their fallen comrades a beer or play a hand of cards when they would finally be reunited.
The tradition of leaving coins on the headstones of military men and women can be traced to as far back as the Roman Empire.

While "Cleaning of the Stones" at the National Cemetery in Holly. I noticed a quarter placed on one of the stones. Later I also noticed a nickel placed on another stone. I was so touched with this that I took pictures.I googled about the coins, and found this out. I am very proud to share this.
A coin left on a headstone lets the deceased soldiers family know that somebody stopped by to pay their respect. Leaving a penny means you visited.
A nickel means that you and the deceased soldier trained at boot camp together. If you served with the soldier, you leave a dime. A quarter is very significant because it means that you were there when that soldier died.

Origins:   Humans have been leaving mementos on and within the final resting places of loved ones almost from the beginning of the species. Excavations of even the earliest graves uncover goods meant to serve the deceased in the next world, such as pottery, weapons and beads.
The earliest known coins date to the late seventh century B.C. As societies began embracing monetary systems, coins began being left in the graves of its citizens merely as yet another way of equipping the dear departed in the afterlife.
Mythologies within certain cultures added specific purpose for coins being left with the dead. In Greek mythology, Charon, the ferryman of Hades, required payment for his services. A coin was therefore placed in the mouth of the dear departed to ensure he would ferry the deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron and into the world of the dead rather than leave him to wander the shore for a hundred years. In England and the U.S., pennies were routinely placed on the closed eyes of the dead, yet the purpose for that practice was not clear — some say it was to keep the eyes of the corpse from flying open,
yet the eyes, once shut by the person laying out the body, do not reopen.
In these more modern days, coins and other small items are sometimes discovered on grave markers, be they plaques resting atop the sod or tombstones erected at the head of the burial plot. These small tokens are left by visitors for no greater purpose than to indicate that someone has visited that particular grave. It has long been a tradition among Jews, for example, to leave a small stone or pebble atop a headstone just to show that someone who cared had stopped by. Coins (especially pennies) are favored by others who wish to demonstrate that the deceased has not been forgotten and that instead his loved ones still visit him.
Sometimes these small remembrances convey meaning specific to the person buried in that plot. For more than twenty years, every month someone has been leaving one Campbell's tomato soup can and a pocketful of change on the plain black granite tombstone that marks the grave of Andy Warhol. The soup can is easy to explain, given Warhol's iconic use of that commodity in his art, but the handful of change remains a bit of a mystery. In similar vein, visitors often leave pebbles, coins and maple leaf pins at the grave of Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the man who replaced Canada's Red Ensign with the Maple Leaf flag.
Regarding the 'tradition' of soldiers leaving on the headstones of fallen comrades varying denominations of coins to denote their relationship with the deceased, the earliest reference to this practice we've found so far dates only to June 2009, when it appeared as a web site post. The version now commonly circulated in e-mail appears to have been drawn from it, albeit some changes have slipped in, such as "A buddy who served in the same outfit, or was with the deceased when he died, might leave a quarter" becoming "By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the soldier when he was killed."
Despite the claim of this tradition's dating back to the days of the Roman Empire, there's no reason to suppose that it does. A coin might be placed in the mouth of a fallen
Roman soldier (to get him across the River Styx), but his comrades wouldn't be leaving their money on his grave, but rather expending it on a funeral banquet in his honor.
Given the lack of evidence that anyone anywhere is following this 'tradition,' it is perhaps best regarded not as an actual practice, but instead as someone's idea of what should be.
Yet military folk do sometimes leave very special remembrances at the graves of deceased servicemen: challenge coins. These tokens identify their bearers as members of particular units and are prized and cherished by those to whom they have been given; thus any challenge coins found
at gravesites were almost certainly left there by comrades-in-arms of the deceased.
It needs be mentioned that not only coins, medallions, and stones have been found on military headstones. In July 2013, a wife of a deceased serviceman discovered another woman's name on her husband's marker in place of her own. Edna Fielden, widow of Air Force Master Sergeant Billy Fielden (buried at Fort Logan Cemetery in Denver 25 years earlier) was shocked to discover the headstone bore the inscription "Dolores" over the legend "His Wife" when she brought her grandchildren to visit the grave.
http://www.snopes.com/military/coins.asp

46 Million Swedish Household Records Now Available

an excerpt from My Heritage Blog

We are happy to announce that we've added over 46 million Swedish records to MyHeritage SuperSearch. The high quality parish register records, spanning 1880 to 1920, are now available, indexed and searchable online for the first time. These records include information about births, deaths, marriages, addresses and changes in household composition. They provide a unique view into the lives of Swedish people living at that time, making this collection a fantastic family history resource for anyone with Swedish heritage.

Swedish Household Examination Books are the primary source for researching the lives of individuals and families throughout the Parishes of Sweden, from the late 1600s to modern times. The books were created and kept by the Swedish Lutheran Church, which was tasked with keeping the official records of the Swedish population until 1991.

Each book or series of books represents a 3-10 year period of time within a parish. Every year, until 1894, the parish priest would visit each home and test each individual’s knowledge of the catechism. They would also collect information about births, marriages, deaths, where people had moved to or from, etc. Each year the priest would return to update the previously recorded information, noting changes within the population of the home. Because the books were updated annually, families can be traced from year to year, and often from location to location throughout the country.

After 1894, the examinations were replaced by Församlingsbok, records of the Church of Sweden which were used to officially enumerate the population from year to year. The focus on examining doctrinal knowledge of the catechism was removed and instead the records were more focused on enumerating the Swedish population.

Additional article at: http://blog.myheritage.com/2015/10/46-million-swedish-household-records-now-available/

Cleaning Up Locations in Legacy

I like to enter my locations in a standard and uniform way for both the long location and short location fields. I also check to make sure that the pin is where it is supposed to be on the map. Sometimes I am in a hurry and I don’t do this when I first enter the location. Periodically I go through and clean them up.  When I have finished with a location I tag it so that I know it has been done (you can also use the verified check box for this). That way I can keep tabs of my progress. Also, take advantage of sorting. Sorting your list in all the different ways that you can will show you duplicates you didn't even know you had.
You can start cleaning up your locations list by going to >>View >> Master List and then select Location.

 

 

 

Find tech tips every day in the Facebook Legacy User Group. The group is free and is available to anyone with a Facebook account.
For video tech tips checkout the Legacy Quick Tips page.  These short videos will make it easy for you to learn all sort of fun and interesting ways to look at your genealogy research.

 

Michele Simmons Lewis is part of the technical support team at Millennia, the makers of the Legacy Family Tree software program. With over 20 years of research experience, Michele’s passion is helping new genealogists get started on the right foot through her writings, classes and lectures. She is the former staff genealogist and weekly columnist for the McDuffie Mirror and now authors Ancestoring, a blog geared toward the beginner/intermediate researcher.

(Legacy)

How to Print to PDF

 A newsletter reader asked today, “How can I save an image on a web site, such as a census page image, as a PDF file?” I decided to answer here in the newsletter in case someone else has the same question.
The short answer is, “there are several methods of saving images to PDF files.” However, I will expand on that with longer answers below. First, you need to save the image to your computer’s hard drive in almost any format. With most web pages, that means saving it in the same format that is used on the web site. Then you need to convert it to PDF. In many programs, that is called “print as PDF.”

The following is for converting specific images, not for saving entire web pages as PDF files. I will later tell how to save entire web pages as PDF files.
Saving the image
In most web browsers, go to the web page of interest, move the mouse icon over the image you wish to save, right click with the mouse, and select “Save image as…” You will then need to select where to save it and also give the newly-saved file a name. On my Mac computer I keep a folder called Downloads where I place all newly-downloaded files. This is also the default folder for downloads on most Windows computers. Then I can later convert any file in that folder to whatever format I wish and save it to an appropriate folder for long-term storage. Every few weeks or so I delete all the older files in the Downloads folder as I no longer need them. You might want to do something similar just to keep things organized.
Macintosh
Apple includes all the needed PDF software with every Mac. Use Finder to go to the Downloads directory (or wherever you saved the image), double-click on the image and wait for it to display on your screen. Unless you have changed your system settings, the image will be displayed in Preview. Within Preview, select FILE in the upper left corner, then select PRINT. A new pop-up window will appear. Click on PDF, and then select “Save as PDF” from the selection list that appears. Follow the menus, and your new PDF file will be saved wherever you specified.
Windows
Microsoft does not include PDF software in Windows although some companies that manufacture computers that use the Windows operating system have added this capability to their systems. Microsoft created the company’s own version of portable document files, called XPS. However, XPS files never became very popular, and you rarely find XPS files on web pages. In any case, a number of third-party companies have created software to add the capability of creating PDF files on any Windows computer.
Probably the most expensive and full-featured solution for creating PDF files on Windows is to install Adobe Acrobat.

NOTE: You will need the full version of Adobe Acrobat, not the free Adobe Reader that only displays existing PDF files.

Adobe Acrobat sells for $449, or you can opt for a monthly subscription for $19.99 a month. Due to Adobe’s high prices and the available products from Adobe’s competitors, I would never purchase Adobe Acrobat. However, if you are interested, you can learn more at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.html.
doPDF is a FREE Windows program that will create PDF files. Once installed, it creates a new, “virtual printer driver” in your computer that is called doPDF. You print to this “printer” exactly as you print to a regular printer: with the desired document open on your computer, click on File –> Print and select doPDF from your list of printers. When you then click on Print, the result will be a PDF file, not a printed piece of paper. You can find doPDF at http://www.dopdf.com.
CutePDF Writer is a popular free “print to PDF” product that operates in much the same manner as doPDF. The same company also sells (for $49.95) CutePDF Professional, which adds capabilities such as the ability to create PDF booklets, combine multiple PDF files into one, add watermarks, edit forms, add comments, add headers and footers, rearrange pages, security, digital signature, scan, FTP, and more. I suspect most genealogists will be satisfied with the free version. Details may be found at http://www.cutepdf.com/.
PrimoPDF is also a very popular free program to create PDF files with Windows. The company’s web site claims that PrimoPDF has been downloaded more than 27 million times. The company also sells other products to convert PDF files to Word format, to edit existing PDF files, and more. Again, I suspect most genealogists will be satisfied with the free version. Details about PrimoPDF may be found at http://www.primopdf.com/.
You can find quite a few other programs that will create PDF files on a Windows computer. The above list is simply a list of the more popular products and are ones that I know will work well. A quick Google search will undoubtedly find other PDF products as well although I may not be as familiar with each of them.
If you have any of the above products, you can convert almost anything that appears on your screen into a PDF file, including web pages. In fact, the same will usually work for Microsoft Word, Excel, Facebook, and many, many more applications. In most cases, use the web browser (or Word or Excel or whatever application you choose) as normal. To save to a PDF file, select FILE in the upper left corner, then select PRINT and choose “Save as PDF.” (The exact wording might be slightly different, depending upon which print-to-PDF product you have installed. However, the wording should be close to “Save as PDF.”)
Save an entire web page as a PDF file
If you have none of the above products installed but wish to save a web page as a PDF file, you can use the Web2PDF web site to create PDF files for you. This free, cloud-based service will read any publicly-available web page and convert it to a PDF file which you can then save on your own computer. It won’t save password-protected pages, however, as the service has no method of logging onto such pages. You can learn more about this free service at http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/.
The Chrome web browser also has a built-in method of saving web pages to PDF files. You do not have to install any special software in your computer nor any extensions in your browser because Google Chrome itself acts as the PDF writer. Open any web page inside Google Chrome, press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P if you are on a Mac) to open the Print dialog, and change the destination. The entire web page will be saved to your computer as a PDF file. My experience with creating PDF files from the Chrome browser is that resultant PDF files often are not an exact copy of the original. Formatting tends to be erratic. I would suggest using one of the above programs instead of the Chrome browser whenever possible. I bet you will then be happier with the results.
Summation
The above methods are quick and easy solutions to creating PDF files. However, once created, PDF files can be changed, appended to, converted, extracted, and more. One resource that I use frequently is the PDF Tutorial at http://www.labnol.org/software/adobe-pdf-guide-tutorial/6296/. It has very brief descriptions of things that can be done with PDF files and, in many cases, links to more detailed descriptions of the various tasks.

Have fun with PDF!
(Dick Eastman)

World War II Enlistment Records Online

One great resource available from the U.S. National Archives is the World War II Enlistment Records. These records have been transcribed and made available on the National Archives web site. These records are especially valuable as many of the personnel papers of these soldiers and sailors were later destroyed in a fire.

The National Archives scanned War Department microfilmed punch cards on enlistments to support the reconstruction of the military personnel records at its National Personnel Records Center. That strikes me as a sad commentary about technology: the data was originally stored on punch cards which, once upon a time, could be read by machines. I haven’t seen a punch card reader in operation for many years, however. The cards were eventually microfilmed for long-term preservation.
Nine million records were later transcribed manually by humans who sat and read the microfilms and transcribed the information onto keyboards. Due to the condition of the microfilms, approximately 1.5 million records could not be scanned. Scanning problems when the microfilms were created also contributed to the errors. Despite these challenges, information about a majority of sixteen million World War II servicemen and women is available via the web site.
I went to the web site and performed a search for an uncle of mine. Thanks to his unusual last name, he was easy to find: he was the only person of that name in the database. Finding him took less than a minute. Looking for someone with a more common surname will take longer, but you can use the site’s “Advanced Search” to use Boolean terms. For instance, all the men named Jones who enlisted in Maine or something similar.
The final record that I was able to see was a transcribed entry, not an image of an original form. That’s okay in this case because the online transcriptions were made from another transcription: the original punch cards that were made from original records. In other words, I was looking at a transcription of a transcription.
The U.S. National Archives says spot checks show that approximately 35% of these records have an error. However, only 4.7% of the sample had an error in the name column, and only 1.3% had errors in the serial number column. Therefore, the National Archives made the determination that a lot of valuable information is available in this database, even with the errors. The database was released and placed online.
I didn’t notice any errors in the data I saw about my uncle and about a few others that I found.
Each record provides the enlistee’s serial number and name, state, and county of residence, place of enlistment, date of enlistment, grade, branch, term of enlistment, place of birth, year of birth, citizenship, race, education, civilian occupation, marital status, and component. I did see a few items left blank or listed as N/A (not available). However, most of the records I saw were filled in completely.
Because the records are for Army enlistments during World War II, the file does not include records for those who enlisted as Army officers. It does, however, have records for those who joined as enlisted personnel and then later were promoted to commissioned officers, as in the case of my uncle. Just because your relative served as an officer, do not assume that he or she is not in this database. The question is, what was the grade upon enlistment, not on discharge?
This online database also contains information on more than 130,000 women who enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
The Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File can provide much information of interest to genealogists. It is especially useful for date and place of birth, even though it does not show parents’ names. At least you will find out where to look for a birth record.
The Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File is available free of charge as one of the databases within the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration’s “Access to Archival Databases” (AAD) at http://www.archives.gov/aad.
(Dick Eastman)

How to Use Two Monitors-and Why You Might Want To

Two Monitor System (photo by Dick Eastman)

I have been using two 27-inch monitors on my desktop computers for years. Using two monitors at once is surprisingly easy to do. I love the convenience of my email program, a web browser, iTunes, and RSS newsreader displayed on the monitor to the left side of my desk while my word processor and my favorite genealogy programs are running in separate windows on the monitor to the right. Doing so is a time saver, and I believe it improves productivity significantly. I wrote about the use of two monitors in a Plus Edition article earlier this year at http://eogn.com/wp/?p=34734.


A picture taken in my hotel room a few minutes ago.
When traveling, I always have felt constrained by being limited to one small screen on the laptop computer. It certainly would be nice to also use two monitors at once on the laptop, especially as I already do so on the desktop at home. A few months ago, I found an easy, lightweight, and not very expensive solution: purchase a second monitor designed only for laptop use. Best of all, it is very is easily packed; it easily fits into any laptop bag or backpack designed for carrying a 16-inch computer, along with the laptop computer itself. My backpack has a pocket for carrying a laptop, and I find I can easily slide both the laptop computer and the external monitor into the one pocket.


In fact, I am using two monitors on the computer I am using to write this article, as you can see by the image above and to the right. Click on the image to view a much larger version. You will note that I am viewing an email program on the laptop on the left while looking at the eogn.com web site on the 16-inch monitor to the right. (I am preparing to post this article.) While I am using a MacBook Air laptop, you can do the same with Windows laptops as well.

In fact, it is possible to add a third or even a fourth monitor onto the laptop and use them all simultaneously. Admittedly, I haven’t tried that yet. I am quite happy with two screens: the one built into the laptop plus the one external monitor.

Anyone not familiar with my installation who happened to walk by and see me working might think at first that I had two separate computers running with two separate screens. However, a closer inspection shows that I have only one computer, one keyboard, and one mouse or trackpad in the laptop.

Both screens are “live” as if they were connected to two different computers, but both are really attached to the same two-and-a-half-pound MacBook Air laptop. The monitor to the right weighs about two-and-a-third pounds and requires no external power supply. I can even create a really large Excel spreadsheet that spans both screens, showing hundreds of “cells” simultaneously. That is usually an eye-popping demonstration as many people don’t realize that this is possible.


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(Dick Eastman)

Aunt Rosie Deaton's All American Slum-Guillion-The Best

(book cover by ernest Matthew Mickler)

I love to look through old recipe books. Ya never know what you will find, either resulting in a "I just have to try that" - or a good laugh. Either way, recipe books can be fun, educational and even make you miss your mama's cooking.

Many years ago while living in Florida, (actually I "had to" ..... thank you U.S. Navy) I purchased a book, White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler.  Not only does it have some of the very best of southern cooking, it has a bevy of southern home photos by the author. Many are from "grandmother's favorites", or the best from Uncle Willie.

Thankfully, I left Florida long ago, and have my feet planted firmly in the deep south  ... and still love White Trash Cooking.

This recipe is easy and you 'll be asking for "seconds."

Aunt Rosie Deaton's All-American Slum-Guillon (The Best)

Cook some elbow macaroni - plenty. Brown minced onion (stronger the better), hamburger and/or bacon in a skillet. Add 1 cup of whole Delmonte tomatoes, salt, pepper and all the macaroni you got. Simmer til you can't stand it any more, then take off the fire and dive in. This is especially good when you're in a hurry-up day like when there's a funeral, an auction, or a flag burning at the Legion Hall.

Honoring the Unknown

Today while my husband and I were taking tombstone photos for Find a Grave, I came across something of interest.  What I presume was the oldest section of the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery are three rows of broken tombstones. All of those tombstones, as noted in the above photo, have the top sections broken off - with only a new inches emerging from the ground. All are no longer readable, and the names of the souls are known only to God. Originally, I thought perhaps these were the foot stones - but a closer look revealed, this is what is left of the original stone. This post is to remember these people - though we do not know who they, but pray all are at rest. This cemetery is located in Clay County, North Carolina.

Downsizing and Going Paperless

I am currently "down-sizing" and clearing my genealogy office of paper notes, scraps, and census pages I have entered into my Legacy program. If you have the same problem, and feel like the "paperwork" is about to bury you - consider a general clean out. I have been amazed at the amount of junk I cleared out so far. Special thanks to Dick Eastman on this excellent reminder. 

Warning: This article contains personal opinions.

I have written a number of times about the advantages of a paperless lifestyle. Genealogists seem especially attached to paper. We often save photocopies of old records, old books, and much, much more. I once bought a four-drawer filing cabinet to store all my paper. A few years later, I purchased a SECOND four-drawer filing cabinet. I purchased probably more than one hundred dollars’ worth of file folders over the years. I photocopied and photocopied and stored all the paper in neatly-arranged folders.
Sadly, I almost never opened the drawers to retrieve anything. When I did attempt to find something, I often couldn’t locate what I wanted because the document was filed in some obscure method. For instance, the marriage record I might be seeking often was filed under the husband’s surname, not under the wife’s maiden name.

Like a recovering alcoholic, I have since broken my addiction to paper. I now live about 98% paper-free, and I love it. Almost every piece of paper that enter my house is either (1.) discarded immediately or (2.) scanned into my computer, and then the paper is discarded. I don’t ever want to go back to cluttering my life with paper. And, yes, I have multiple backups of everything worth saving; some backup copies are stored at home, and other copies are stored off-site for safety. See http://goo.gl/qLFH63 for some of my earlier articles about how to live a paperless lifestyle.
An article by Jura Koncius of the Washington Post takes the same concept of living paperless and expands it even further. The article says that many Americans, mostly younger adults, are not so interested in the lifestyle trappings or nostalgic memorabilia they were so lovingly raised with. Quoting from the article:

“Members of the generation that once embraced sex, drugs and rock-and-roll are trying to offload their place settings for 12, family photo albums and leather sectionals.

Their offspring don’t want them.”

The article goes on to say, “Whether becoming empty nesters, downsizing or just finally embracing the decluttering movement, boomers are taking a good close look at the things they have spent their life collecting.”

My favorite quote from the article is, “If I can’t store my memories of something in a computer, I’m probably not going to keep them around.”
Indeed, we all need to question why we need to save the bric-a-brac of our lives. Do we need our college textbooks, sports trophies or T-shirt collections? Even more important, do we need to purchase larger and more expensive homes to keep all our possessions?

Are you planning to downsize in your retirement years? Now is the time to start planning. I had exposure to downsizing when I spent two years living in a Winnebago motor home. The adjustment was difficult at first. However, once I downsized, I found that possessions were not all that important. I enjoyed the freedom of not having to deal with all my stuff. You might find the same to be true.
Yes, even genealogists can live comfortably without paper or possessions.
You can read the article by Jura Koncius at http://goo.gl/XyAAZw while George Carlin’s comments about stuff may be found on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac.
My thanks to newsletter reader Jerry Ball for telling me about the article by Jura Koncius.
(Dick Eastman)

DNA Sequences Can Trace Your Ancestors to Within 30 Miles

DNA sequencing can already tell us a lot about our ancestors—but now, a new technique developed by an international team of scientists reportedly allows them to pinpoint a person’s geographical origin—going back 1,000 years.
The Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool beats previous best attempts to tie location to DNA. It claims to track populations back to the islands or villages they descend from, with a 98 percent success rate, compared to within about 500 miles for old methods.
The term “GPS”is a terrible acronym for this technique, as it has nothing to do with the very popular Global Positioning System millions of people call GPS. In this case, GPS stands for Geographic Population Structure.
You can learn more in an article by Jamie Condliffe in the Gizmodo web site at http://gizmodo.com/dna-sequences-can-trace-your-ancestors-to-within-30-mil-1571773851 and the accompanying video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aap-s1kle4Q.
(Dick Eastman)

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2015

Proud to honor my Irish heritage today - thank you Lt. James Delay and all the others that braved the new world !

How to Print to PDF

A newsletter reader asked today, “How can I save an image on a web site, such as a census page image, as a PDF file?” I decided to answer here in the newsletter in case someone else has the same question.
The short answer is, “there are several methods of saving images to PDF files.” However, I will expand on that with longer answers below. First, you need to save the image to your computer’s hard drive in almost any format. With most web pages, that means saving it in the same format that is used on the web site. Then you need to convert it to PDF. In many programs, that is called “print as PDF.”



The following is for converting specific images, not for saving entire web pages as PDF files. I will later tell how to save entire web pages as PDF files.

Saving the image

In most web browsers, go to the web page of interest, move the mouse icon over the image you wish to save, right click with the mouse, and select “Save image as…” You will then need to select where to save it and also give the newly-saved file a name. On my Mac computer I keep a folder called Downloads where I place all newly-downloaded files. This is also the default folder for downloads on most Windows computers. Then I can later convert any file in that folder to whatever format I wish and save it to an appropriate folder for long-term storage. Every few weeks or so I delete all the older files in the Downloads folder as I no longer need them. You might want to do something similar just to keep things organized.

Macintosh

Apple includes all the needed PDF software with every Mac. Use Finder to go to the Downloads directory (or wherever you saved the image), double-click on the image and wait for it to display on your screen. Unless you have changed your system settings, the image will be displayed in Preview. Within Preview, select FILE in the upper left corner, then select PRINT. A new pop-up window will appear. Click on PDF, and then select “Save as PDF” from the selection list that appears. Follow the menus, and your new PDF file will be saved wherever you specified.

Windows

Microsoft does not include PDF software in Windows although some companies that manufacture computers that use the Windows operating system have added this capability to their systems. Microsoft created the company’s own version of portable document files, called XPS. However, XPS files never became very popular, and you rarely find XPS files on web pages. In any case, a number of third-party companies have created software to add the capability of creating PDF files on any Windows computer.

Probably the most expensive and full-featured solution for creating PDF files on Windows is to install Adobe Acrobat.

NOTE: You will need the full version of Adobe Acrobat, not the free Adobe Reader that only displays existing PDF files.

Adobe Acrobat sells for $449, or you can opt for a monthly subscription for $19.99 a month. Due to Adobe’s high prices and the available products from Adobe’s competitors, I would never purchase Adobe Acrobat. However, if you are interested, you can learn more at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.html.

doPDF is a FREE Windows program that will create PDF files. Once installed, it creates a new, “virtual printer driver” in your computer that is called doPDF. You print to this “printer” exactly as you print to a regular printer: with the desired document open on your computer, click on File –> Print and select doPDF from your list of printers. When you then click on Print, the result will be a PDF file, not a printed piece of paper. You can find doPDF at http://www.dopdf.com.

CutePDF Writer is a popular free “print to PDF” product that operates in much the same manner as doPDF. The same company also sells (for $49.95) CutePDF Professional, which adds capabilities such as the ability to create PDF booklets, combine multiple PDF files into one, add watermarks, edit forms, add comments, add headers and footers, rearrange pages, security, digital signature, scan, FTP, and more. I suspect most genealogists will be satisfied with the free version. Details may be found at http://www.cutepdf.com/.

PrimoPDF is also a very popular free program to create PDF files with Windows. The company’s web site claims that PrimoPDF has been downloaded more than 27 million times. The company also sells other products to convert PDF files to Word format, to edit existing PDF files, and more. Again, I suspect most genealogists will be satisfied with the free version. Details about PrimoPDF may be found at http://www.primopdf.com/.

You can find quite a few other programs that will create PDF files on a Windows computer. The above list is simply a list of the more popular products and are ones that I know will work well. A quick Google search will undoubtedly find other PDF products as well although I may not be as familiar with each of them.

If you have any of the above products, you can convert almost anything that appears on your screen into a PDF file, including web pages. In fact, the same will usually work for Microsoft Word, Excel, Facebook, and many, many more applications. In most cases, use the web browser (or Word or Excel or whatever application you choose) as normal. To save to a PDF file, select FILE in the upper left corner, then select PRINT and choose “Save as PDF.” (The exact wording might be slightly different, depending upon which print-to-PDF product you have installed. However, the wording should be close to “Save as PDF.”)

Save an entire web page as a PDF file

If you have none of the above products installed but wish to save a web page as a PDF file, you can use the Web2PDF web site to create PDF files for you. This free, cloud-based service will read any publicly-available web page and convert it to a PDF file which you can then save on your own computer. It won’t save password-protected pages, however, as the service has no method of logging onto such pages. You can learn more about this free service at http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/.

The Chrome web browser also has a built-in method of saving web pages to PDF files. You do not have to install any special software in your computer nor any extensions in your browser because Google Chrome itself acts as the PDF writer. Open any web page inside Google Chrome, press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P if you are on a Mac) to open the Print dialog, and change the destination. The entire web page will be saved to your computer as a PDF file. My experience with creating PDF files from the Chrome browser is that resultant PDF files often are not an exact copy of the original. Formatting tends to be erratic. I would suggest using one of the above programs instead of the Chrome browser whenever possible. I bet you will then be happier with the results.

Summation

The above methods are quick and easy solutions to creating PDF files. However, once created, PDF files can be changed, appended to, converted, extracted, and more. One resource that I use frequently is the PDF Tutorial at http://www.labnol.org/software/adobe-pdf-guide-tutorial/6296/. It has very brief descriptions of things that can be done with PDF files and, in many cases, links to more detailed descriptions of the various tasks.

Have fun with PDF!
(Dick Eastman Newsletter)