Learn from Ellis Island — Back Up Your Files

Dick Eastman includes a very interesting piece regarding Ellis Island in his March 19th EOGN  Plus Edition.  I read that not only was Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty hard hit by Hurricane Sandy, but that all their technology on the island was destroyed.   In their own words:  At Ellis, all of our technology, digital infrastructure and servers that support the American Family Immigration History Center® were completely destroyed. Luckily, the immigration database was kept offsite and has remained accessible.  Thanks to that backup, you can still access their immigration information at http://www.ellisisland.org.

What have you done to back up your files lately?  Is your  backup in the same location as your computer?  What happened during Hurricane Sandy is a pointed reminder not only to back up your data, but to also have a backup off site.  This is just as important for your personal files as for those at your business  It makes “The Cloud”  look a bit more appealing.

Need help?  Kimberly Powell writes a very informative article on “How to Disaster Proof Your Genealogy Data: Cloud Based Backup and Storaage.”  Check it out by clicking the article title.  Saving copies of those precious photos in the cloud is not a bad idea either.  How often have we read about photos being lost in fires, hurricanes and tornados?  If you need more information on this specific topic,  a good place to start is “Comparing the Best Ways to Store Your Photos Online” by Sharon Bakinin.

Do you have any experience backing up your own material, good or bad, that you would like to share?  Just leave a comment.

vea/27 March 2013
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass

Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net

Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com

Exploring Newton’s Past (a LibGuide): http://guides.newtonfreelibrary.net/genealogy?hs=a

Digital Commonwealth and the Boston Public Library: Building a Digital Library System for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Digital Commonwealth, begun in 2007,  hopes to do two things:  to facilitate the creation of digital collections within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to provide a central site for access to these collections. Funding for Digital Commonwealth  has come from two sources: the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and membership fees.  There are fees for participating members.  For of small institution the fee is $50.00.  For a larger one it is $100.00.  For Group Sponsoring Organizations it is $500.00.  (For more information on membership, see the Membership Information link below.)

Camera setup at the BPL

The Boston Public Library has also long been committed to developing and maintaining free digital access to library material.  The initial funding for the BPL’s scanning and digitization lab came from a portion of the insurance money received as a result of the August 1998 flood that took out much of the library’s basement.  They also have received grants through  various sources, including the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).  In 2007 the BPL committed to a two year project to scan their government documents collection, which took a major hit during the flooding.  In 2008 they partnered with Open Library/Internet Archive with the ultimate goal of  digitizing  all their public domain books. (The genealogy books located in the Social Sciences Department have all been done. )  The main building of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square  has two labs, one for the Internet Archive (see my earlier post of 15 October below) and their digitization lab, where the pictures included in this posting were taken on 18 July 2012.

Digital Commonwealth  partnered with the Boston Public Library in November of 2011. A letter of agreement between Digital Commonwealth and the BPL “states that Digital Commonwealth will take the lead on planning outreach activities and conferences and that the BPL will take the lead on developing and maintaining the technological infrastructure, creating user-friendly instructions, and providing some customer service for participating members.”   (Click on the previous sentence to learn more about the agreement.)

Who can have material digitized? Massachusetts libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies can have collections digitized. The Digital Commonwealth considers itself a resource for all libraries in the Commonwealth. The group hopes to build a broad based, state wide coalition. Even individuals can have material digitized and added to Digital Commonwealth.

Helen Keller’s Bathing Suit

What can be digitized? Basically, if it can fit through the door they can do it. Digital Commonwealth works with books, maps, glass slides, photos, objects, even Helen Keller’s bathing suit …  If a map is too large, they will do it in sections and Photoshop it back together again. There is, however, one exception.  They do not digitize newspapers. Think of the difference between the setup of a book and a newspaper. Digitizing newspapers is a whole different ballgame.  It requires separate, specialized hardware and software.

Scanner and Storage

What do you need to do and how much will it cost?  My understanding is that Digital Commonwealth will do the digitization for free, through an LSTA grant they receive.   However, if you want them to digitize your material, there is a certain amount of work that needs to be done in advance.  First, if needed, the material must be conserved.  Digitization is never a replacement for conservation.  After you have the original material conserved, then you must create a specific description for each item.  Digital Commonwealth can advise you on what information needs to be included.  You may need a grant to get all of this done.  Again, check with Digital Commonwealth.  They can come to you to assess what is needed to digitize your material, to give you advice on how to proceed and, when ready for digitization, to pick up and return your material. Another point of note, this should not be considered a piecemeal project. They encourage the digitization of entire collections, not a bit here and a bit there.

To learn more, click on:

Digital Commonwealth.

Digital Commonwealth Collections  (listed as the Collection Tree)       Once here, click on an individual library and then click on the specific collection of interest to access the material.

Digital Commonwealth Membership Information

Digital Commonwealth Contact Information

Digital Commonwealth News Blog

Digital Commonwealth List of Members

Digital Commonwealth Member Resources

————————————————————————————————–

The Boston Public Library’s blog, the BPL Compass, published a series of blog postings about Digital Commonwealth in March and April of 2012. I have listed the links below.

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Introduction

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Chapter 1

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Chapter 2

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Chapter 3

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Chapter 4

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Chapter 5

Digitization at the BPL and a Digital Library for Massachusetts: Chapter 6

vea/3 January 2013/links updated 7 January 2012
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass

Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net

Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com

Exploring Newton’s Past (a LibGuide): http://guides.newtonfreelibrary.net/genealogy?hs=a

Using the Internet Archive for Your Genealogy Research

Recently I did a blog posting about the Internet Archive at the Boston Public Library. Since that time I have been working with it more than I have in the past.  I know the Boston Public Library has put all of their older books relating to genealogy into the Internet Archive.  (This is the collection that is housed in their Social Sciences Collection on the second floor of their older McKim building. ) With just one genealogy collection this large, let alone the the collections that other libraries  have been adding, it seemed logical that the Internet Archive would have a category devoted to genealogy.  I went hunting.  It takes a few clicks  to get there.  If you click on one of the options below, you will find five screenshots that will show you how to get there.

USING THE INTERNET ARCHIVE FOR GENEALOGY (Screenshots in Microsoft Word)

USING THE INTERNET ARCHIVE FOR GENEALOGY (Screenshots in PDF format)

A WORD OF WARNING REGARDING A SIMILAR WEBSITE.  The Internet Archive is absolutely free to use.  You can usually download books into your computer to use as needed.  It has a specific arddress: https://archive.org. If you find yourself at a site that offers a seven day free trial it is not this site.  There is another site whose web address ends in archives [plural, not singular].com [not .org] that is a for profit site.  This other site will ask you for a credit card to access its free trial.  I have known two people who have used this second site.  They have not been able to opt out by clicking a designated spot on the website.  Both had to actually phone the company.  Neither found anything useful at this second site.  I repeat, there is no cost to use the Internet Archive site I am citing.  You will NOT be asked for your credit card.

vea/17 November 2012
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass
Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com Exploring Newton’s Past (LibGuide) : http://guides.newtonfreelibrary.net/genealogy?hs=a

The Durant-Kenrick Homestead: A House of Many Stories

On Monday, October 29th at 7:00 pm, the Newton Free Library will be hosting Joe Hunter’s documentary “The Durant-Kenrick Homestead: A House with Many Stories” in the Druker Auditorium. The house, located at 286 Waverly Avenue in Newton, is an historical gem.

In 1732 Edward Durant II bought 91 acres of land in Newton. The land had once been the location of the village of the Praying Indians of Nonantum. Here Durant built a large, salt-box type home in the Georgian style in 1732. One of its unique features was its hand-painted stenciled floors.

The home, today known as the Durant-Kenrick Homestead, has seen a great deal of local, state and national history.  Its second owner, Edward Durant III, was elected as Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence in 1774.  He was also a delegate to the Provincial Congress where, according to the King’s Handbook of Newton, he “delighted in twisting the British lion’s tail with speeches and resolutions.”  Two of his sons, Thomas and Allen, were both Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington and a third son, Edward, was a regimental surgeon.

After Edward died in 1782, the home was sold to John Kenrick, a noted horticulturalist.  In 1790 Kenrick founded the first large nursery in New England here, starting with pear trees that were raised from the stones (seeds or pits). His son William became a partner in 1833.  Among William’s sources for the nursery were imports from the London Horticultural Society.  He wrote the nursery’s first catalog and later authored “The New American Orchardist” and “The American Silk-Grower’s Guide.” Plants and trees from the Kenrick nursery were shipped throughout America.

John Kenrick, besides being the well known horticulturalist noted above, was also a committed abolitionist.  In this area he was a man before his time.  In 1817 he published the “Horrors of Slavery,” with it’s preface dated “Newton.” He was President of the New-England Anti-Slavery Society.

Between 1872 and 1903 parcels of land were sold off in various land transactions.  By the time Arthur S. Dewing bought the home in 1923, the remaining land was approximately 2 acres. Dewing was a descendant of the original Durant owners. He restored the property. The home was included in the National Register in 1976. The Durant Homestead was established in 1985.  The property was acquired by the City of Newton in 2011.

This is less than a thumb nail sketch of the history of the house and its people.  Take a look at the links below for more detailed information.

Article and Blog Links

 The Durant-Kenrick House and Property “A Brief Landscape History“ by Lucinda A. Brockway

Painting the Durant Kenrick House.

“18th-Century home to be restored by Historic Newton” by Susan Danseyar.  Newton Tab, 13 April 2010.

Boston 1775: “Dig at the Durant-Kenrick Homestead” By J. L. Bell,     11 November 2011

“Digging Up History: Archeologists Explore 18th-Century Life through Finds at Newton Site” by Taryn Plumb.  Boston Globe, 27 November 2011.

Boston 1775: “Howe Explores the Durant-Kenrick House in Newton” by J. L. Bell, 7 April 2012

Stenciling from the floor of the Durant-Kenrick House Lives On: “Edward Durant Floorcloths“

Durant-Kenrick Homestead: Community Preservation Project – City of Newton

Resources Not on the Internet

King’s Handbook of Newton, Massachusetts by M. F. Sweetser. Boston, MA: Moses King Corporation, 1889. pp. 106-110.  N 974.44N S97H

“Capt. Durant House in National Register.” Newton Tribune. 9 June 1976. p. 20

Newton, Massachusetts, 1679-1779: A Biographical Directory. Compiled by Priscilla R. Ritter and Thelma Fleishman.  Boston, MA: The New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1982. N 929.2 1982

Landmark Study for the Durant-Kenrick Homestead. Compiled by Rachel Gakenheimer. May 7, 1997. 10pp plus maps and illustrations.  Includes genealogy. N 917.444 N48DU (Compact Shelving).

vea/26 October 2012
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass
Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com

Internet Archive at the Boston Public Library

To me, there is nothing like having a book in my hands or an original record on the table in front of me.  Sometimes seeing the original gives you that one piece of information that you need that you would not get from it online. At the same time, none of us have unlimited resources (time or money).  The only things that do appear to be unlimited are the books and records that just might contain the information we are seeking.

Thank goodness for digitization. Although what is available online is still the tip of the iceberg, that tip keeps getting bigger thanks to grants for digitization projects and groups like the Internet Archive.  We are able to quickly search an entire online book electronically for one piece of information or read it page by page for a more in depth study.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit the Internet Archive at its Northeast Regional Scanning Center, conveniently located at the Boston Public Library.  The Archive digitizes books, yearbooks, city annual reports. Anything between covers could be a candidate for digitization. Our guide specifically discussed Boston’s annual reports. Now a city’s annual report may sound like boring reading.  Don’t you believe it. There can be all sorts of information packed away there. They have great local history. One researcher was able to digitally search city annual reports to track the growth and decline of specific ethnic groups within specific neighborhoods of Boston.  This was make possible by the work that had already been done by the Internet Archive.

Books used to be time consuming and difficult to digitize, but the Internet Archive now uses a specially designed V-shaped cradle to hold the books being copied.  [No broken spines.]  A 300 page book can now take just a few hours.  The Internet Archive scans also include OCR (Optical Code Recognition). This creates data code for the content of books which, in turn, allows information and specific words within books to be tracked. It could have taken our friend mentioned above years to do the research that he was able to search digitally in a much shorter time.

Did you know that you can read any of the books scanned by the Internet Archive on your Kindle? They can also be listened to as audio books as well, but the voice does sound canned. Internet Archive owns the books that they copy and they give their digital copies away free to whoever wants to read or listen to them.  The cost is 10 cents per page.  It’s $30.00 for a 300 page book, but you get it for free. Money for the scanning often comes from grants. Google would have digitized all these books for free, but in the end Google would have owned the digitized version of all the books.  If they wanted to charge for access in the future, they could.

The BPL has had all their genealogy books digitized.  If a book is still under copyright and it is a book that cannot be lent in hard copy, they loan out digitally only that number that they have in hard copy.  If they own three hard copy (paper) books, only three people can borrow the digital copies.  Legally this seems to satisfy the copyrights. For a link to this treasure trove, just click BPL at the Internet Archive.

vea/15 October 2012
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass
Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com

Eastern European Jews on the Eve of World War II

This Tuesday, October 2nd at 7:00 p.m., Professor Antony Polonsky will be speaking at the Newton Free Library about the Jews of Eastern Europe on the Eve of World War II.  Whether you had family who lived in Eastern Europe before the war or want to know more about the topic, this talk should be well worth your time.  Professor Polonsky recreates a rich and vibrant world that is often lost in the shadows of myths,  stereotypes, and what we know now was to come.

Professor Polonsky is currently the Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust studies at Brandeis.  Several of the books he has authored or edited are listed below. Besides Professor Polonsky’s books, I have also listed other selected books on the topic for those who would like to do further reading.  For additional information on the talk, click this link.

Books by Antony Polonsky at the Newton Free Library

The Jews in Poland and Russia. (3 vols.) Oxford; Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010-2012.   947.004 P76J

The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland. Edited by Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.   940.531 NEIGHBORS

From Shtetl to Socialism: Studies from Polin. Edited by Antony Polonsky.  London; Washington: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993.  943.8 FROM

A Selection of Related Books

Cohen, Chester G. Shtetl Finder: Jewish Communities in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries in the Pale of Settlement of Russia and Poland, and in Lithuania, Latvia, Galicia, and Bukovina, with Names of Residents. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1989.  929.1 COHEN

Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 947.004 D32G

Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust.  Edited by Shmuel Spector.  3 vols. Jerusalem: Vad Vashem/New York: New York University Press, 2001.  R 940.531 ENCYCLOPEDIA
—–This work provides the history of the shtetls and cities of nearly every country in continental Europe.  (Exceptions are Bulgaria, Finland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.)

Gitelman, Zvi Y.  A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union.  New York: Schocken Books: 1988. 947.004 G44C

Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today.  New York: J. Wiley, 1994.  943 G92U

Haumann, Heiko.  A History of Eastern European Jews. Budapest; New York: Central European University Press: 2002.  947.004 HAUMANN

Mokotoff, Gary, Sallyann Amdur Sack, and Alexander Sharon.  Where Once We Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust.  Revised ed. Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu, 2002. R 940.531 M72W
—–This work is key to finding the location of Jewish communities in Europe.  It not only gives you town names, but alternative names, nearby towns, and town names using the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex System.  This system groups town names phonetically, by how the names sound.  This may be the only way you can find a town whose name has been misspelled. Read the explanatory text (pp. xi-xxvi) before using this book.

Reiss, Lionel S. (Lionel Samson) A World in Twilight: A Portrait of the Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.  New York, Macmillan, 1971. 914.7 R27W

Shternshis, Anna.  Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.  947.004 S56S

Vishniac, Roman. To Give Them Light: The Legacy of Roman Vishniac. Edited by Marion Wiesel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. 305.892 V82T
—–Vishniac was a photographer who traveled throughout Eastern Europe in the years before World War II.

Roth, Joseph.  Translated by Michael Hofmann. The Wandering Jew. New York : Norton, 2001.  305.892 R74W
—–This is the first English translation of the journalist Joseph Roth who died in 1939. These  writings are about Jews in pre-World War II Europe.

The Yivo Encyclopedia of  Jews in Eastern Europe.  Gershon David Hundert, editor in chief. (2 vols.) New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008  R 305.892 Y65H

Zborowski, Mark and Elizabeth Herzog.  Life is with People: The Jewish Little-Town of Eastern Europe.  New York: International Universities Press, 1962. 296 Z19L

Website

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 W. Sixteenth St.
New York, NY 10011- 6301
Telephone: (212) 246-6080
http://www.yivoinstitute.org

vea/28 September 2012
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass
Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com

What’s a Mocavo?

To me, the name sounds like some exotic bird.  However, Mocavo is actually a search engine, a relatively new one, launched on March 16, 2011. Like that exotic bird, it can help your family search take flight. Using the free version should reward you with unexpected hits, adding to your trove of family information.

How is this search engine different?  Unlike Google, Mocavo searches only genealogy and family history sites.  (No more Facebook pages popping up.)  It is also my understanding that Mocavo goes back in time, not just hitting what has been posted most recently.  It is built to search for people, for your ancestors. Although you can come up with many hits unrelated to the person you are researching, it is not difficult to narrow parameters.  Mocavo also has a subscriber version called Mocavo Plus, but use the free version to see how far you move forward in your research.

Want to know more?  I am including some links below.

To Mocavo:  http://www.mocavo.com

Mocavo.com — Don’t Search Without It by Carolyn L. Barkley

Some Quick Tips on Using Mocavo from Mocavo’s Blog

Mocavo Connects the Hidden Dots for Genealogists by Trevor Gilbert

Mocavo Plus — The Next Generation of Genealogy Search Engine by the genealogist and blogger Dick Eastman.  (His is a must read blog if you want to have a prayer of keeping up with everything that is going on in the world of  genealogy.)

Now, take flight.

Ginny

vea/25 September 2012
Newton Free Library
Newton, Mass
Library website:  http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
Genealogy blog:  http://thecuriousgenealogist.wordpress.com