For $subst('Recip.EmailAddr') May 25, 2006 Are you headed to the National Genealogical Society Conference (NGS, http://www.eshow2000.com/ngs) June 7-10? So are two of our own Family Tree Magazine editors. Make a beeline for booth 306 where you can pick up free research fliers and take advantage of our awesome conference-only deal for your new or renewed subscription. Anyone who signs up is entered in our drawing to win the subscription free, along with The Family Tree Resource Book for Genealogists (Family Tree Books, $29.99) and two Family Tree Magazine special issues. Conference attendees also can get up-close-and-personal research advice from several Family Tree Magazine experts (see this newsletter's Speaker's Schedule) and we're slipping a Family Tree Magazine Genealogy Guidebook into everyone's goody bag. It's not too late to count yourself in. NGS conference registration costs $210 for NGS members and $245 for nonmembers, or $95 per day. —Diane Haddad, Newsletter Editor ftmnews-editor@fwpubs.com P.S. Make sure you don't miss a single issue of your E-mail Update! Add our address (familytree-newsletter@fwpubs.com) to your email-address book—your software will recognize the Update as an e-mail you want to read.   Directory Assistance A Nip of Scotch Mergers and Acquisitions Talking Head Tip of the Week: Crunching the Numbers—Free! Worthwhile Web Sites Identifying Family Photographs: Say "Cheese" Speakers' Schedule Advertiser Special Offers Directory Assistance Ancestry.com gets the Forehead Smacker of the Year Award for this one: Webmasters have added a new searchable catalog of its 23,000-plus databases at http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/alldblist.aspx. What's the big deal? The databases have customized search pages, so you'll often get better results searching a database individually instead of using the site's global search. And if there's no database covering the type of record or time frame you need, you can skip the search altogether. Before, you had to browse an alphabetized list of all Ancestry.com's databases, making it virtually impossible to find one containing, say, Louisiana births, without knowing the exact title. Would you look under L for Louisiana or B for births—or I for Index? Maybe N for New Orleans? You get the idea. Now (finally) you can search for databases that might contain your ancestors' information by entering all or part of a title, a few keywords, year range or location. You even can use the catalog to find recently updated databases. The title search is your best bet, but you'll still have to experiment: my search on louisiana birth yielded the New Orleans, Louisiana Birth Records Index, 1790-1899, but louisiana births got nothing. Entering new orleans in the Location field also failed to bring up the birth index. Still, this beats the heck out of that scary alphabetized list. A Nip of Scotch Both ScotlandsPeople (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) and Ancestry.uk (http://ancestry.co.uk) recently posted indexes and images for the 1841 census of Scotland. That's the earliest Scottish census to provide more than a statistical population count, with information for each household member including name, sex, address, occupation and whether the person was born in the United Kingdom. Both sites now have the complete collection of genealogically useful UK censuses, which run every 10 years from 1841 through the most recent publicly available 1901 count. Ancestry.uk's UK Deluxe Membership costs 69.95 pounds ($131) annually—or you can go the pay-per-view route for 4.95 pounds ($9), which gets you 10 record views in 14 days. Over at ScotlandsPeople, you pay 6 pounds ($11) for 30 page credits you must use within seven days. Viewing a single census record image costs five credits. (See http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=551&390 for details on that site's charges.) Mergers and Acquisitions More news from across the Atlantic: The pay-per-view British records site 1837online (http://1837online.com) has purchased The National Archivist, a site that offered records leased from the British national archives. That move enhances 1837online's collection of vital and census information with Death Duty Registers (1786 to 1903), Passport Applications (1851 to 1862 and 1874 to 1903), military records and more. For a limited time (1837online doesn't say how long that'll be), you can view The National Archivist data for one pre-paid unit—that's the same price 1837online charges to view its birth, marriage and death indexes, but two units less than viewing census images and transcriptions. Pricing plans start at about $9 for 50 units; you must use them within 90 days. Talking Head Reduce your chances of embarrassing yourself in front of foreign cousins by seeing and hearing translated phrases at http://www.pollyglotto.com. Polly Glotto is an animated translator: Under the Translate section, type in your phrase, select your translate-to and -from languages and click Submit to hear Polly speak. The translated phrase will appear below, in the Speak text box. If you change the language under that pull-down menu, you can give Polly various accents. Almost as much fun: Polly seems oddly fascinated by the cursor—twirl yours around the page and see for yourself. Crunching the Numbers—Free! This tip comes from the June 2006 Family Tree Magazine: Finding an ancestor's age at death is a common calculation conundrum. An easy—and free—solution is the Days Between Calculator (http://www.easycalculation.com/days-between-dates.php), which shows you how many years, months and days have elapsed between two dates. For 88 more fabulous genealogy freebies, see the June 2006 Family Tree Magazine, available at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/mags/display.asp?id=1768. Do you have a great idea for discovering, preserving or celebrating family history? E-mail us your tip at ftmnews-editor@fwpubs.com with "TIP OF THE WEEK" in the subject line. If we publish it, you'll win a free copy of the May 2006 Trace Your Family History, available for purchase online at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/mags/display.asp?id=1767. Overwhelmed by the number of family history-related Web sites popping up? FamilyTreeMagazine.com sorts through them all—whew!—to bring you only the very best. We recently recommended the following as Sites of the Week: • Saskatchewan Homestead Index http://www.saskhomesteads.com Surf this index to 360,000 individuals who participated in the homesteading process in Saskatchewan, Canada, from 1872 to 1930. • Slavery in America http://www.slaveryinamerica.org Learn about the beginnings of American slavery through photographs, slave narratives, biographies and more. • Moravian Immigrant Database Index http://feefhs.org/czs/mid/indexmid.html Click on the appropriate surname link to start browsing this 4,000-name index of Moravian immigrants to America.   Say "Cheese" Kris Valentine's relatives remember his grandfather snapping pictures. Valentine thinks he took this snapshot in the 1930s. Who is she? Follow along as our photo sleuth takes the case at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ photos/current.htm. In this Web-exclusive column, expert photo historian Maureen A. Taylor helps readers analyze old family pictures. If you have a family photo mystery for Taylor to solve, check out our submission guidelines at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ photos/photohelp.htm. Emporia, Kan. Sharon DeBartolo Carmack May 24 Kansas Council of Genealogical Societies Topics: Flesh on the Bones: Putting Your Ancestors into Historical Perspective Cryptic Clues in the Bone Yard Before You Publish: What Every Genealogist Needs to Know About Copyright Painless Organization For more information, see www.skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/kcgs. Chicago, Ill. June 7-10 National Genealogical Society Conference Rhonda R. McClure Topics: Old and New: Combining the Best of Internet and Traditional Research Railroad Records & Railroad History: Methods of Tracking The WPA Era: What it Created for Genealogists Family History Gems in Century and Bicentennial Farms Programs Paul Milner Topics: Irish Emigrants to North America: Before, During, and After the Famine Finding Your Scottish Ancestors: The Big Five The WPA Era: What it Created for Genealogists Family History Gems in Century and Bicentennial Farms Programs Paula Stuart-Warren Topics: Developing Good Research Habits Using Scanners Scanners: Not Just for Photographs Taking it With You: Using a PDA in Your Genealogical Research Maureen A. Taylor Topic: On the Newstand: Writing for Magazines For more information, see eshow2000.com/ngs. Des Moines, Iowa James Beidler June 24 Iowa Genealogical Society German Interest Group Annual Seminar Topic: German and Pennsylvania Genealogy For more information, see www.iowagenealogy.org. Richmond, Va. June 24-25 Palatines to America Conference Maureen A. Taylor Topics: Identifying and Dating Family Photographs Preserving Your Family Photographs Reading Immigrant Clues in Photographs For more information, see www.palam.org. Find out about more upcoming speaking engagements and family history experts at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/speakers. RootsMagic Genealogy Software - "An excellent choice for any genealogist" says Family Tree Magazine. Get a free trial copy at http://www.RootsMagic.com GenSmarts Automated Genealogy Research - "the best genealogy add-on software " says Eastman's Newsletter. Only $24.95 at http://www.GenSmarts.com/ftmagDeals.asp Get Family Tree Magazine back issues at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/mags. Explore Family Tree Magazine E-mail Update past issues at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/newsletter/archive.html. Get free Family Tree News Service articles for your genealogy newsletter or Web site at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ftns-subscribe.asp. Sponsor This Newsletter For information on sponsoring this newsletter or to receive a rate card, e-mail kworkman@longshoremedia.com You have received this e-mail because you expressed interest in receiving updates about genealogy and genealogy products from Family Tree Magazine and Betterway Books by e-mail. Thanks for your subscription! You are currently subscribed as $subst('Recip.EmailAddr') To unsubscribe, send a blank message to $subst('email.unsub') To change the address we send messages to, click here: http://fwpubs.sparklist.com/read/my_account/?forum=familytree To receive the text-only version of the newsletter, unsubscribe using the directions above, then subscribe to the text-only list by sending a blank email to join-familytree-text@fwpubs.sparklist.com. Questions? To ensure a timely response to your questions concerning magazine subscriptions or other general help, please see www.familytreemagazine.com/contactus.html Please only reply to this message with newsletter-specific questions. Entire Contents Copyright© 2006 F+W Publications, Inc. 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, OH 45236 All Rights Reserved June 2006 Issue Table of Contents Subscribe Now!