Ancestry Boasts Better Census Images

This was recently written by Ancestry.com and featured in Dick Eastman's online Newsletter:

"Today we’ve launched enhancements for six U.S. Census collections – in addition to the improvements on six censuses released a few months ago. In all, we’ve gone through more than 200 million records to improve images and many indexes.
"Enhanced and clearer images are now available for the 1790-1900 censuses, and indexes have been improved for the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1900 censuses. All of the images have a cleaner, crisper look. And occasionally names can be read that were illegible before—either because they were too light, too dark, too blurry, too faded, or covered in tape, etc."

If you haven't looked at the census lately, perhaps you should revisit them.

The Digital Library...An Example

The Allan County Public Library is well-known in genealogy circles. It has one of the largest collections in the United States.

It has introduced an initiative to increasingly digitize its collection and make those resources available to its patrons online. This is arguably a vision of the future of libraries.

You can read the fascinating article about the service at: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091129/LOCAL/311299914/1002/LOCAL

Florida Pioneer Descendants Certification Program

This program is sponsored by the Florida State Genealogical Society (FSGS). It honors descendants of Florida pioneers at both a state and county level.

Eligibility for award of a certificate is as follows:

1. Any person who shall provide documentary proof satisfactory to the committee, establishing a solid chain of evidence that he or she has an ancestor who settled in Florida (present boundaries) before the state was admitted to the union, 3 March 1845.
2. Any person who shall provide documentary proof satisfactory to the committee, establishing a solid chain of evidence that he or she has an ancestor who settled in a county of Florida (present boundaries) before the county was formed.

If you are interested in participating in the program, you can get more information on it at: http://www.flsgs.org/. The documentation requirements are quite precise, but the FSGS provides a workbook to help a person through the process. There is a fee for the certificate and to file an application. Before it is all said and done, you will probably spend about $60. But regardless of the time and the cost, having the certificate and the formal recognition of your ancestor as aFlorida Pioneer can be very gratifying.

After a little bit of research on your own, if you are interested, let me know (pgsfla@yahoo.com; Subject: "Florida Pioneer Certification).

Family History Center to Close for the Holidays

Just a heads up...the Family History Center (9001 106th Ave, Largo, FL) will be closed for the holidays from 12 December 2009 Through 4 January 2010.

Heirloom Day

This is your chance to show off a bit. At the meeting on 19 Dec at the Largo Library we are going to showcase family heirlooms. Bring yours to the meeting and show them off. Not only will it make you proud, but it may give others some ideas of family items they may have but have not thought of preserving.

We will provide tables to display your items. It may be helpful to make up some explanatory signs that explain your treasures in case you are not there to give explanations....you may be looking at another's contributions.

This is the first time (at least in my memory) that we have done this as a meeting, and it is shaping up to be a fun event.

Census Records on Line...Many Choices....soon?

Beau Sharbrough has published an article on his blog, The Unofficial Footnote.blog, where he reviews the status of both Footnote and FamilySearch to put US Federal Census indexes and images on line. Footnote is a pay site, and FamilySearch is pay-less.

It is an interesting article, especially since Ancestry and HeritageQuest are already in the hunt, and you have both fee and free sites in the mix.

You can read Beau's article at: http://tufblog.com/2009/12/05/footnote-census-and-familysearch/

PGS Endowment Now in Place

On the 27th of November, Sally Brown (the PGS Director of Finance) and I met with Julie Scales, the Pinellas Community Foundation Executive Director, to finalize the establishment of the PGS Endowment Fund.

The PGS has always been in a position to accept donations both from members and others, but now we have a specific place for donations to go that will, over time, increase their value and enable the PGS to benefit from them over the long term.

If you have any questions about the fund, please let me or Sally know and we will be happy to answer them. And if you are looking for a tax-free donation to make before the end of the tax year, keep the PGS Endowment in mind. We have already had some people donate to the fund and would welcome more.

Here is a photograph of Sally handing the signed Letter of Agreement to Julie (on the left).