Queen Victoria's Journals Online

In celebration of her Diamond Jubilee, and of Queen Victoria's birthday on 24 May, Queen Elizabeth II has made the journals of Queen Victoria available to the public.

The journals provide a picture of Queen Victoria's life from the first entry in 1832 at the age of 13 until 10 days before her death aged 81 in 1901.

Digital images of every page in Queen Victoria's diaries are available at Queen Victoria's Journals . Full transcriptions and keyword searching of the journal entries cover the period from Queen Victoria's first diary entry in July 1832 to her marriage to Prince Albert in February 1840

This is an ongoing project and journal entries will continue to be transcribed.

Boy Finds Photo of Long Dead Uncle in Garage Sale Camera

This is such an odd story that I felt compelled to share it. A 13 year old boy bought a camera at a garage sale. He got it home and opened it to find a photo of his uncle who'd been killed several years before.

The family who owned the camera have no known connection to the boy or his uncle. 

Read the complete details of this strange tale of serendipity in Wichita Kansas

Sharing Memories (Week 22): The Bread Box

This Week 22 of our 52 weeks of Sharing Memories - A Genealogy Journey for 2012. This is our third year writing our memoirs and childhood memories for our descendants.

If you are just joining us, you can take a peek at the last two years' of prompts by clicking on the Sharing Memories tab at the top of the blog. You can jump in at any time and you can skip topics that you don't like. There are no rules, it's all about getting your memories down on paper. The prompts are here as a guide to help if you are stuck for ideas.

Share your memories here in the comment section, on your own blog, or privately in a journal you keep at home. The important thing is to write.

Last week I thought about our Bread Box. Sounds like a silly memory doesn't it? I don't know why it popped into my head. You rarely see them anymore so maybe 100 years from now my descendants won't even know what one is.

My mom had a bread box on the kitchen counter - the kind with the flip up front. It was made out of some cheap metal, maybe tin?

When i was first married, I had a breadbox too. Old habits die hard I guess! But the bread didn't last long, it would often go moldy before the loaf was finished.

Funny how that went out of style at some point. Now I store my bread in the refrigerator. It dries out but it lasts longer. Kind of a Catch-22 situation. 

A Genealogist's Birthday Card

 Okay maybe it's just me but I think this is the cutest card ever!

It might be a bit young for my son who has a 30-something birthday coming up very soon, but I liked it enough to buy it anyway.

Sure hope he isn't reading my Olive Tree Genealogy blog today.....

I wish there were more genealogy themed cards available. I realize I could make one myself but I like store-bought ones.

And I like ones I can send and get via mail the old-fashioned way, not a digital card.

I'm not fussy, I just know what I like! I prefer a card I can save.  And I save far too many! I have many dozens in my Genealogy Treasures Blanket Box.

How about you? Are you totally into digital? Or do you like the look and feel of one you get in the mail?

Brewster Collection Added to NYGB eLibrary

The following announcement was received by Olive Tree Genealogy from The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society

Brewster Collection Added to NYG&B eLibrary 

Emma Brewster Jones

Our digital library now includes all 27 portions of the Brewster Collection donated by Miss Emma C. Brewster Jones in 1908. This genealogical material on the descendants of Elder William Brewster, passenger on the Mayflower, contains extensive material on lines of descent through female Brewster family members.

The new material in the digital library is particularly exciting as it contains material on the female lines; none of this was included in her two-volume Brewster Genealogy published in 1907. Surnames listed include: Bartlett, Christophers, Coolidge, Freeman, Fosdick, Knowles, Mayo, Paine, Pickett, Prence, Prince, Starr, Turner, and Wetherell.

Members will be interested to know that the NYG&B acquired the Brewster Collection almost 100 years ago, and a description was published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, (Vol. 044, No.3).

Click here for a complete breakdown of the volumes and chapters within this collection.    

A Tip for Using Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner (and a Coupon!)

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner came to my rescue once again. Such a simple thing but it saved me some time and trouble. I'd promised my daughter a copy of one 8 1/2x11 sheet of paper. That doesn't sound like a big deal but the sheet is colored and I needed the copy to retain the original colors. I couldn't photocopy it and mail to her because I don't have a color copier.

I could have gone up to Staples and paid to have it copied but that's a 20 minute drive each way and with the cost of gas plus my time spent doing this, it seemed like there had to be a better way. Not that my daughter isn't worth it, she is!! But I wanted to get the copy to her quickly, and I was laid up with my bad hip. So the drive was out of the question.

My main computer is not hooked up since I'm in process of moving to my new office space, so that means no big scanner hooked up either.  I could have used my iPhone camera but the page was mostly text and that always seems a little blurry to me on a camera picture.

Then I remembered my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner! All I had to do was make two quick scans (one for each section of the page I needed) Then insert the memory card into the USB adapter, pop it into my MacBookAir and within seconds I had both scans ready to email to my daughter. I didn't bother with the stitching abiiity because that wasn't necessary but I could have done that quickly too.

So that's my new tip for using your Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner. Don't have a Flip-Pal? No worries, here's two May coupons for you to choose from if you want to purchase one.

May Flora

May 22 – May 31 Use Promotion Code: gc512a

Purchase a Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner and receive a grey Flip-Pal Carry Case FREE! (Please note: this is the neoprene, not deluxe carry case. Both items must be in your shopping cart.)

May Fauna

May 22 – May 31 Use Promotion Code: dcs512a

Purchase a Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner with Digital Creativity Suite 3.0 DVD and get a Flip-Pal mobile scanner Sketch Kit FREE! (Both items must be in your shopping cart.)

Six States Indexed for 1940 US Census on FamilySearch

The following announcement was received by Olive Tree Genealogy from FamilySearch

1940 U.S. Census Community Project Nearly Halfway Complete

22 May 2012

The halfway point for indexing the 1940 U.S. census is fast approaching. 

 

Congratulations and thank you to all of the volunteers participating in this unprecedented genealogical community effort. Currently more than 20 states are at or above 85 percent complete. Six states—Delaware, Colorado, Kansas, Oregon, Virginia, and New Hampshire—are now indexed and searchable by name, location, and family relations. And thanks to the efforts of more than 100,000 volunteers, more states will be added in the coming weeks. Follow the day-to-day indexing status at the1940census.com dashboard and search completed states at familysearch.org/1940census.

 

Current and Completed Projects

To view a list of currently available indexing projects, along with their record language and completion percentage, visit the FamilySearch indexing updates page. To learn more about individual projects, view the FamilySearch projects page.

 

View the FamilySearch projects page to see the full list of available projects and to learn more about how to participate in various projects.

 

From Record to Reality - Gleaning Your Family's Story of Service

Olive Tree Genealogy is very pleased to present an article by Guest Author Marie Rundquist. Marie's books (listed at end of article) are available at  buybooksontheweb.com (Infinity Publishing), Barnes and Noble, along with other Internet and E-book sources. 

From Record to Reality

Gleaning Your Family's Story of Service

by Marie Rundquist

May 2012

At Memorial Day events and backyard barbecues, we cherish the memories of our beloved men and women in uniform, share their treasured photographs, and display their medals of honor, but what do we really know of their stories?  As time passes, and wartime memories fade, an ancestor's military registration record, limited to the most basic of vital information, may be the only evidence of his service to his country.  While genealogists highlight marriages, births, and family lines in their research, military service is often incidental -- a footnote annotation in a charted family tree.  When I initially researched my own family history, I found elaborate details related to my ancestors' marriages, births, and deaths, but noted only a cursory mention of their military careers.  


At a recent memorial service for my husband's paternal uncle, we had the opportunity to witness the presentation of an American flag by an Honor Guard, a stunning tribute to my husband's “Uncle Ed” and his service to his country.  At Ed's viewing, there were many stories shared about his love of family, his devotion to his real-estate career, his ability to organize community events, and put people at ease, but little was said about his military service.  As he was laid to rest, and an American flag, folded into the shape of a three-cornered hat, was presented by the Honor Guard to surviving family, all in attendance were at once reminded that Ed had enlisted in the the military during World War II, and were deeply moved.


Ed's World War II enlistment record offers an abbreviated view of a high school graduate with machine-shop training, a single man with dependents, who were his immediate family. Challenged to complete Ed's story of service, I searched the 1930 Federal Census records and discovered that Ed was, in fact, the youngest in a family of eight, that his mother and father were originally from Poland.  I examined the census reports of adjacent households in Trenton, New Jersey's sixth ward, observed numbers of Czechoslovakian and Polish surnames in close proximity, and concluded that Ed lived in a tightly-knit, Eastern European immigrant community.  I browsed the recently published 1940 Federal Census and unearthed the roots of Ed's (and my husband's) deeply ingrained work-ethic, for according to the enumerator, Ed's three elder brothers all contributed to the household, and each held a job – as, respectively, a night-club musician, a factory-worker, and my father-in-law was, at the time of the1940 Federal Census, an apprentice linoleum layer for a department store.  According to the census taker, Polish was the language most commonly spoken at home in Ed's neighborhood..  


A 1941 parish directory was shared at Ed's memorial service, its pages lined with the photographs of young men in uniform, their faces full of hope, eyes bright and shining.  Leafing through the directory, I was reminded that while most view senior year as a launching point for college and careers, for a high school graduating class in the early 1940s, senior year was a weigh-station on a long and perilous journey – one that for many would end on foreign shores.  From a published obituary, I learned that Ed was an Air Force veteran of World War II, who served in the Asiatic Pacific campaign.  After returning home, Ed approached life with boundless optimism  -- that he, as a survivor of World War II,  had the opportunity to marry, buy a home, build a career, educate his children, and be of help to  his family and friends ranked highest among his concerns. A lover of music and song, and a devoted family man, Ed didn't “sweat the small stuff.”  Quibbling over trivial and insignificant events of the day simply didn't factor into Ed's priorities – nor did quibbling factor into his brother's priorities, as I recall, and certainly my husband is not a quibbler..


By extending my research beyond a single military registration record, to include the 1930 and 1940 Federal Census, newspaper articles, and other published sources, I gained insight into a family's shared traits, uncovered the greater reality that upheld “Uncle Ed's” military enlistment record, and, in honor of Memorial Day, advanced one enlisted man's story of service from footnote to front-and-center.



Marie Rundquist is a DNA project manager, collaborative research community moderator, president of an information systems consulting firm and author of Revisiting Anne Marie: How an Amerindian Woman of Seventeenth-Century Nova Scotia and a DNA Match Redefine “American” Heritage and Cajun by Any Other Name Recovering the Lost History of a Family and a People. For more information visit: http://dna-genealogy-history.com