"Tracing Our Roots" Newsletter Archive (A monthly genealogy newsletter written by the late Brenda Kellow, dec'd, for the Plano Star Courier newspaper. We've included all the ones we could recover.)
If President Bush’s proposed Fiscal Year budget for 2003 passes, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will commence building the electronic records archives. NARA is working on a program with others that would develop solutions for preserving and providing access to the records of the government records in this digital age. This would preserve any record in any kind of electronic format, free it from the format in which it was created, retain it indefinitely, and enable access for reading it on computer systems for now and in the future.
The NARA web site says: “To ensure the public can find the records they seek, the President's budget includes $1 million to operate and maintain NARA's Archival Research Catalog, an online "card catalog" of descriptions of our nationwide holdings. The President's budget also includes $1.25 million for NARA to study options for the future storage, preservation, and access to the military personnel records now at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO. In addition, there is $3.25 million for NARA to assist the University of Texas with the repair of the leaking plaza at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.” Let’s hope his budget is accepted. Visit the site at
www.nara.gov/nara/pressrelease/nr02-31.html.
1930 CENSUS RELATED MICROFILM: There is a new seven roll microfilm series related to the 1930 census release that might be of interest. Besides indexing city streets, it also indexes enumeration districts. Roll 1 includes Arizona and part of California; 2 has the rest of California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida and Georgia; 3 is for Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland; 4 has Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York; 5 has the rest of New York, and part of Carolina; 6 finishes North Carolina and begins Ohio; and 7 finishes Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Watch the NARA web site mentioned above for more information on this collection.
Olympic genealogists? No, the word “Roots” appearing on the American athletes uniforms is the logo for the Canadian manufacturer of sportswear who provided the team members with their outfits. It does not suggest that they are family historians. Having the word on their clothes has not acted subliminally to bring people to research their families. Although the Family History Library lengthened its hours to accommodate the crowds, they have not come. With everyone at the events, the library is empty of researchers.
SATURDAY SEMINAR: Do you struggle to read the handwriting in those old documents? Do you know how to determine the difference between an “f” and an “s”? What do those little letters in superscript above names mean to you when transcribing these old documents? What kind of personality traits did your ancestor have? Does the way the “t” is crossed mean anything? If you want to learn the answers to these questions and more come to the free Saturday Morning Seminar this Saturday at the Harrington Library. These two lectures will feature Stella Fincher who will give us insight into reading old handwriting and Bob Swepston will explain to us how to analyze our ancestors’ handwriting and gain insight into their personalities.
The event will be on Saturday, February 16, 2002 at the Gladys Harrington Library, 1501 18th Street, Plano. The program runs 9:30am to noon (doors open at 9:10am). Admission is free. Sponsored by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc.
NIGR IN DC: Once again the National Institute of Genealogical Research will convene in Washington, D.C. for the annual week of intense learning during the month of July. Attending this week-long event during Monday July 15, 2002 to Saturday July 20, 2002 acquaints the students with the workings of the National Archives and how to research there like a professional. For more information go to the NIGR web site at www.rootsweb.com/~natgenin/.
Brenda Kellow, dec'd, Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Instructor, had a Bachelor’s Degree in history and taught genealogy courses at the local Community College and computer genealogy at the University.
