This week's news includes: condolences to the family of Chuck Knuthson, a great genealogical speaker, researcher, and former board member of FGS, GSG, and other organizations; Halvor Moorshead, head of Moorshead Magazines [
Family Chronicle, History Magazine, Internet Genealogy, and the new
Discovering Family History] is retiring and has sold the company to staff members Ed Zapletal and Rick Cree.
Listener e-mail includes: Greek genealogical research links are available at Cyndi's List (at
http://www.cyndislist.com/greece.html) and at Kimberly Powell's column at About.com (at
http://genealogy.about.com/od/greece); a request for help reading an occupation on a 1920 census schedule for Flint, Michigan, draws a unanimous opinion from The Guys [Quarry]; thanks for suggestions for recording an interview with a mother who transcribed contents of a now-lost Bible; an explanation of the source for information used by a census enumerator to complete a mortality schedule in the 1880 census; and a true life story of backing up one's data.
Drew describes and discusses Mark Tucker's brilliant
Genealogy Research Process map and textual description at
http://www.ThinkGenealogy.com. It is derived from concepts of the
Board for Certification of Genealogists and by Elizabeth Shown Mills, expert on the genealogical proof standard and author of
Evidence Explained, the new and definitive book concerning citation of genealogical evidence.
Drew discusses the use of dictionaries to locate the definitions of older, more obscure terms found in historical and genealogical documents. The example he cites is the term, "Fresno," a piece of equipment once used for scraping road surfaces.
The Guys discuss databases for historical newspapers and more recent (ca. 1980 to present) newspapers. The companies discussed are
LexisNexis (the Nexis portion);
NewsBank's "America's Genealogy Bank" database; and
ProQuest. Newspaper databases may be available through your local public library and/or your local college or university library. Drew discovered that sometimes the newspapers available in a database inside the library are greater in number than when you access the database remotely from outside the library. This can be due to differences in licensing contracts. George encourages listeners to check out all the databases available through their libraries.