We had a great Zoom meeting on Monday. It is so good to see your faces…and your
smiles as, one by one, you saw all of us together on the screen.
Zoom is becoming so common and I am happy to be on the
bandwagon. I want to applaud the many local
organizations that are providing opportunities by Zoom, especially the
Bellingham BSAC, the YMCA, many spiritual centers, and genealogy groups all
over the country. If you need help with
Zoom, contact us. It will enrich your “stay
at home”.
#1.
I especially
honor the
Skagit Valley Genealogy Society’s early adoption of Zoom.
I attended their Zoom learning session and
two meetings in April.
On their May
schedule is a brick wall meet-up on May 2 and their monthly speaker on evidence
and citations on May 16.
Membership is
required for Zoom meetings.
It is $15
per calendar year and can be paid online. See the Board Message on their home
page at
https://skagitvalleygenealogy.org/
plus the Meeting and Membership pages.
#2.
Our
public
libraries are open online digital media and even live programming.
For the live programming schedule in Whatcom
County, go to their home page at
https://www.wcls.org/.
Click on the tiles “We’re Open Online” then “WCLS @ Home”.
Also the
Ancestry.com library edition,
usually only at the library, is now available at home.
Librarians are answering questions in chat
and email.
#3. MyHeritage: FREE ACCESS to over 250,000 US
Yearbooks IN COLOR (link)
! MyHeritage has colorized its entire U.S. Yearbook
collection, and to celebrate this they are opening up FREE access to U.S.
Yearbooks through May 23rd, 2020! Ancestry.com
also has free access to yearbooks through this Sunday, April 26 (tomorrow).
#4. Family
History Library has free webinars going on and FamilySearch.org has
meet-ups on Facebook and Instagram every week.
#5.
US Census:
50% of people in the US have responded along
with 56% of Washingtonians.
If you have
not filed, don’t delay.
https://my2020census.gov/
#6. April 25th
is National DNA Day and the DNA Sales have started. If you have already tested, consider testing strategic
relatives who have not. Thomas MacEntee
has the best consolidated websites. At
dnabargains.com he has all the DNA companies with sales together. At abundantgenealogy.com you can subscribe to
a daily email in which he tries to balance free items and bargains. He announces all the free webinars from
familytreewebinars.com. He keeps you
informed about what you can do and what day it is (an important public service,
if you ask me).
#7. Have you heard
the word “nibling”? It’s a
gender-neutral, quick way to say “nieces and nephews”. Now we have siblings and niblings. Niblings is not in the dictionary yet but
definitely in common use.
#8. Book: The Lost Family; How DNA Testing Is
Upending Who We Are is a new book and its author Libby Copeland is
being interviewed on multiple podcasts, including Lisa Louise Cook’s Genealogy
Gems, Extreme Genes, and my favorite, Research Like a Pro. Libby wrote an in-depth article for the
Washington Post a few years ago about an astonishing DNA surprise. Quickly she received over 400 letters from
people wanting to tell her their stories.
This was a book that needed to be written. She weaves these stories throughout the
chapters as she delves into the emotion, culture, history and business of DNA. She aimed for it to be accessible by everyone,
without DNA knowledge, and intentionally did not reveal the story in her
interviews.
#9. TV show: Roots Less Traveled is
half-hour show currently airing on NBC on Sundays at 4:00 PM. The host travels with two family members to a
location where they have family history.
The first show featured DNA half siblings in Mexico City, second show
was a grandfather-grandson who went to Montana, and third is a mother-son who
went to Tennessee. The last pair learned
about a slave ancestor who was set free and awarded land in his slaveholder’s
will around 1840. The former slave was
sued by the children and it became an important case in the Tennessee Supreme
Court. The show is kind of fun and
illustrates the stories regular people can find about their ancestors.
#10. TV
Show: The Genetic Detective
will be coming May 19 on ABC at 10 PM ET.
It follows CeCe Moore on genetic crime cases.
When CeCe did TV work in the past, she complained that most of her
scenes were left on the cutting room floor.
It left me feeling unsatisfied about how they did the DNA research. Now CeCe is the producer and the star and we
are set to see more about the DNA in this show.
Some Non-Genealogy News
An orangutan named Sandra at the Florida’s Center for
Great Apes observed her handlers and started washing her hands. Ha, ha.
You have to read to the end. You never know what you will find.
Best wishes until we meet again. Judith
