ELLIS ISLAND FREE DATABASE in NEED OF FUNDS

Recently ELLIS ISLAND contacted me to ask for a donation so that the database, which is free on the Internet, can remain a free service.

I remember how thrilled people were to use that database! One day it was up, and for the next week or two it was so jammed up, it was difficult to get in.

It was my understanding that ELLIS ISLAND was begun as a volunteer project and I never imagined that it would become a pay for play database.

Like any good database it helped thousands of people interested in learning about their immigrant ancestors.

However, many people did not find their ancestors on Ellis Island because they did not realize that this database focuses of those who CAME IN STEERAGE. If a person was on a better ticket, then they got off at CASTLE ROCK.

Above is the link to the free database.

TRAGIC : POLISH PRESIDENT and DIGNITARIES KILLED IN PLANE CRASH ON WAY TO SITE OF UNMARKED GRAVES

For some of us who have roots in Eastern Europe, the recent plane crash that astonishingly resulted in the death of the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and leading dignitaries, to the site of unmarked graves of Poles, killed and deposited there in 1940, will bring up the stories that our ancestors told us about life in the Old Country. "Katyn" is a place in the Russian forest where there are unmarked graves - about 20,000 people are in those graves, many intelligencia, priests, doctors, writers and artists.

IT HAS BEEN A STRUGGLE TO GET THE RUSSIANS TO OPEN THEIR FILES ON THE PRISONERS... Perhaps this is where some GENEALOGY ACTIVISM is required!?

Some of these prisoners are OUR ANCESTORS!

Let me say that about a year ago I discovered that a few persons with a surname in my family had been taken to Siberia... Now, I do not know who these persons are or how or if they are related to me, but possibly this ties in with the story I was told about the Russian soldiers taking my grandfather's brother away... A snippet of family story that I was too young to ask my grandfather more questions about.

Attaching to a Seattle Times article by Associated Press Writer

"Killed with President Lech Kaczynski in the plane crash near Smolensk, western Russia, were his wife, Maria Kaczynska, his closest aides, lawmakers, army commanders, church figures, historic figures, plane crew and relatives of the victims of the 1940 massacre of Polish officers in Katyn and in other places. They had been traveling to Katyn to mark the 70th anniversary.

The Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish military leaders and intellectuals at Katyn and other places at the start of World War II. It was part of a strategy to subdue the country, whose eastern half it occupied starting in 1939, and better control it..." Minika Scislowska

SOME GOOD REASONS TO HIRE A PROFESSIONAL by Christine of ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

1) WHEN YOU ARE INTERESTED IN YOUR ANCESTRY but YOU have no time, ability, or interest in researching yourself.

2) WHEN you want the research to hold up through documentation ("Proofed"), especially for submission as evidence for entitlement to certain societies (D.A.R or S.A.R. for instance), scholarships, tribal benefits, etc.

3) WHEN you want research that you, a relative, or someone else conducted, to be double checked.

4) WHEN you find yourself stuck in your personal research. (Maybe you need a little advice on where to find resources.)

5) WHEN the research needs to hold up in court (for immigration/INS, wills/inheritance, etc.)

6) WHEN someone approaches you claiming to be related and you are not sure of them. (I've actually met someone quite wealthy that this happened to. Sometimes long lost relatives really are related, sometimes this is someone who is only in touch because they want money...)
7) WHEN someone is making a claim to be a son or daughter or when you wish to find a birth child or birth parent. (Some times genealogy is not necessary in these cases, but will achieve or help to achieve documentation and current location. I highly recommend DNA testing as well.)

C 2010 Ancestry Worship Genealogy All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved.

A 1940 TRANSCRIPTION PROJECT YOU MAY WISH TO JOIN (ED)

UPDATE APRIL 2012 by Ancestry Worship Genealogy

I've provided links to the National Archives 1940 information and to the ED converter utility to the left sidebar - top of this blog. I attended a lecture by Steve Morse at Latter Day Saints Family History Library in Los Angeles recently. It was a fun lecture, tracing the addresses of famous cartoon characters such as Donald Duck.

If you will go to this ED converter site and follow the links you will find the names of volunteers who have transcribed ED districts and the various cities, large and small, in the United States that are already done. You'll see what needs to be done.

I've spend the last week getting into these sites and using them, or trying to. I'm one of the millions who crashed the National Archives site last Monday within hours after the grand opening. What has happened is that a third party contractor has been hired to provide additional servers for the traffic. As a result the images are not showing as was planned. The original idea was to get to a ED and see a row of small page icons to click one after another. As the site is functioning at this time, you will click page by page. (Try using the ZOOM function on your computer to reduce these to cut on how much mouse you have to use.)

I had 1930 addresses as well as 1940ish addresses for seven families which I used the converter on. Sadly, not one of these addresses was wrong, but the ED districts that the addresses brought up on the converter were not right. In one case one ED district was brought up but I read seven ED's till I found the family. In two other cases the ED converter did not reduce the number of films much because the street name ran through a few districts, meaning that the street is being read but probably not the house number. YES USING THE MAP and introducing the cross street names narrowed it some, but not much!

PLEASE NOTE THAT IN ABOUT A WEEK I'LL BE POSTING ON ALTERNATIVES FOR FINDING ANCESTORS ON THE 1940.

OLDER POSTS BELOW:
STEVE MORSE has announced a 1940 CENSUS transcription project which you may wish to join.

Let me tell you this... Morse has been an innovator in helping us get into and around the ELLIS ISLAND database. I heard him speak a few years ago and he's probably a genius with a few cohorts who are genius's too. More than anything this is going to take a lot of work and cooperation!

You may already know that we cannot legally see the 1940 until April 1, 2012 but that doesn't mean it will be TRANSCRIBED... and because of the burgeoning population counted yes I AM saying it could be 2015 before you can use it... unless of course you are part of a project in which your transcription work makes your towns of interest available to other genealogists!check this out NOW!

PS : JUST HEARD FROM STEVE (and PARTNER JOEL) HIMSELF! READ STEVE'S COMMENT BELOW!
(The project is not per surname!)

Was there a PRANKSTER in YOUR FAMILY? APRIL FOOLS has BEEN CELEBRATED FOR 500 YEARS

..."By the mid-17th century, the April Fools' prank parade had spread throughout much of Europe under the name "All Fools' Day." It developed into a day on which friends tried to trick each other into running silly errands in search of nonexistent objects, such as pigeon's milk. One of the most infamous early widespread reports of the practice was from the April 2, 1698, edition of the British newspaper Dawks' News-Letter, which reported on a group of people who went to the Tower of London to see a nonexistent ceremonial washing of the lions, a joke repeated annually for centuries to come. "

LINK TO THE FULL ARTICLE NOW!