For $subst('Recip.EmailAddr') Dec. 16, 2004 If Santa leaves the wrong-color research tote or a too-big "Genealogists live in the past lane" t-shirt under your tree this year, staff at the Connecticut-based Godfrey Memorial Library have discovered where you can send your complaints. Contrary to popular belief, the big guy in red doesn't retire to Miami Beach come springtime. Instead, Santa and his family of seven spend the season in the quieter, less-flashy Missouri countryside. Want proof? Click the image shown here and see the US census record for yourself. Then visit http://www.godfrey.org to learn about the Godfrey library's research offerings—both online and off—and how you can become a member. Next time you hear from yours truly will be Jan. 6, 2005, when we announce the winners of our Brick-Wall Busters tip contest. And speaking of contests, meet Phyllis Penninga, the final winner of our Family Tree Magazine Fan Photo Contest. Happy holidays, everyone! —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.    New Name, Same Restrictions Meeting of Minds A New Tip in Your DNA Toolbox Save It for Later AncestorNews: Genealogical Serendipity Tip of the Week: Get Carded Worthwhile Web Sites Expert Advice: Photographic Memory Identifying Family Photographs: Building a Family Network Speakers' Schedule Advertiser Special Offers New Name, Same Restrictions Genealogists spent last week e-mailing their senators about a national security bill called S2845, one variation of which contained birth-record access restrictions that had been part of HR10, an anti-terrorism bill the House of Representatives approved in September. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004—a version of S2845 minus the most-genealogically-worrisome language—passed the Senate on Dec. 8 and is on its way to the White House. President Bush has indicated he'll sign it. The version of S2845 that passed requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to "establish requirements for proof and verification of identity as a condition of issuance of a birth certificate, with additional security measures for the issuance of a birth certificate for a person who is not the applicant." States must demonstrate their compliance with the secretary's requirements. (To read the bill, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and type in S2845 as the bill number, then choose option four in the search results.) The version of S2845 that didn't pass contained language (which was identical to the restrictions in HR10) that would have required you to provide the name on the certificate, the date and location of the person's birth, and the mother's maiden name in order to see a birth record. You also would have had to show "substantial proof" of your own identity. (To read this version, search for S2845 on Thomas.gov and choose option three, then see Section 3063—Minimum Standards for Federal Recognition.) According to Sen. Mike DeWine's (R-OH) office, that unvoted-on legislation will likely die when the 108th Congressional Session closes at the end of the year. The Federation of Genealogical Societies' Record Preservation and Access Committee chairman, David Rencher, requested last fall that HR10's sponsor, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), add provisions to protect your access to noncertified copies of birth certificates and to records older than 100 years. (See the full letter at http://www.fgs.org/rpa/formalactions.htm.) The provisions weren't incorporated. A report in the Dec. 8 RootsWeb Review, the newsletter of the free genealogy Web site RootsWeb (http://www.rootsweb.com), suggests that genealogists write their representatives and ask that any homeland security legislation clarify that access restrictions apply only to the birth certificates of living people. You can find contact information for your senators at http://www.senate.gov and your congressmen at http://www.house.gov. Meeting of Minds Genealogy blogger and New England Historic Genealogical Society computer expert Dick Eastman has created a free online reference service called the Encyclopedia of Genealogy at http://www.eogen.com. This searchable, user-maintained database features how-to articles contributed by genealogists like you on a wide array of family history topics. "It provides reference information about everything in genealogy except people," Eastman says. He'd eventually like to build the site's current 200 articles to 5,000. Any registered user can edit an article in the database, or add an article using a tool called EditMe editor. Other site visitors instantly will see the edits and new pages. Eastman cautions that the articles you contribute can be reprinted anywhere. "If you want to retain copyright of your words," he says, "please do not post them on the Encyclopedia of Genealogy." A New Tip in Your DNA Toolbox Genetic genealogy testing company FamilyTreeDNA (http://www.familytreedna.com) has introduced a free tool that increases the usefulness of Y-DNA tests for your genealogical research. FTDNATiP is a calculator that allows two matching individuals to estimate the number of years back to their shared ancestor based on the mutation rates of their tested Y-DNA markers. Both individuals must be FamilyTreeDNA customers. The estimate is expressed in a percent chance that the most recent common ancestor (called the MRCA in genetic-genealogy circles) lived within a specific number of years. That could, for example, let you focus your efforts to link two family trees on ancestors who lived during the right time frame. People who match on Y-DNA tests already could guess how long ago their MRCA lived based on the number of mutations in their test results. The FTDNATiP calculator gives a better estimate, according to Blankfeld. "[FTDNATiP] is specific to the two individuals who are being compared, whereas all the other estimates are generic and address an average mutation rate for the entire panel of Y-DNA markers." For more information on genetic genealogy, see the February 2005 Family Tree Magazine. Save It for Later Pearl Street Software—manufacturer of the Family Tree Legends genealogy program—just released a file backup system especially for Family Tree Maker software users. Many computer-savvy genealogists prefer to save copies of their family files on the Internet in case their computers self-destruct. You can back up Family Tree Maker files—or any genealogy program's files—to your computer hard drive or to CD-ROM. Except for Family Tree Legends, no genealogy software offers file backup over the Internet. Pearl Street's Family File Saver automatically backs up your Family Tree Maker files to Pearl Street's servers. It also lets you restore your files to any version saved during the past 30 days. Family File Saver, which works with Family Tree Maker versions 4.0 through 11.0 and 2005, costs $39.95 to $79.95, depending on how many files you want to back up. It runs on Windows 95 or higher and requires 32MB RAM. See https://www.familyfilesaver.com for details. Genealogical Serendipity Having trouble tracking down those elusive ancestors? In this biweekly, Web-exclusive column, contributing editor Nancy Hendrickson points to new and helpful ways to do your computer-related genealogy research. This week, she marvels at an amazing-but-true research coincidence. Read more at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ancestornews/current.html. Hendrickson is a family historian, freelance writer and the author of the book Finding Your Roots Online, on sale now at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/store/display.asp?id=70583. Browse the archive of her AncestorNews columns at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ancestornews/previous.html. Get Carded This week's tip comes from Harlow Stillings: When you send your Christmas cards, try to mail them early and write a note asking for the genealogical information you want. The details you'll receive will amaze you. 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 Plugging Into Your Past by Rick Crume (Family Tree Books, $19.99), also available online at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/store/display.asp?id=70624. 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: • 100 Most Common US Surnames http://genealogy.about.com/library/weekly/aa_common_surnames.htm Think your research suffers from common-surname syndrome? Find out here. • The History Channel Hanukkah http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/holidays/hanukkah/index.html Learn about the history and traditions of Hanukkah (including some that have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records). • The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands http://international.loc.gov/intldl/awkbhtml/awkbhome.html Explore the history of the Dutch in America. • British Pathe Limited http://www.britishpathe.com This British media firm offers 3,500 hours of digitized newsreels from more than 60 years.   Photographic Memory Scanning may be family historians' favorite way to preserve old photos: You can print a digitized image as many times as you want, e-mail it to relatives far and wide, and squirrel away the original for safekeeping. But some types of photos should be scanned only minimally, and others, not at all. Here's a rundown: • Albumen prints such as cartes de visite, created primarily in the 19th century, are light-sensitive. Scan them minimally. Pre-1860s albumen photos, called salt prints or calotypes, are even less tolerant—avoid scanning them altogether. Try taking a digital photo instead. • Gelatin-silver prints, the black-and-white photos used until the 1950s, are relatively stable and won't fade from moderate scanning. • Metal tintype images aren't predisposed to fading from a reasonable amount of scanning—provided they weren't hand-colored. Don't scan colored tintypes because the watercolors and organic dyes could deteriorate. • Avoid scanning ambrotypes (made with glass), daguerreotypes (made on metal) and pannotypes (printed on leather or linen). Fading isn't a big issue, but the scanner's lid can damage the material the photo's printed on. —Rhonda R. McClure For more on scanning family photos and how to choose the right scanner for you, see the Family Tree Magazine 2005 Guidebook, available on newsstands and from http://www.familytreemagazine.com/mags/display.asp?id=1644. Building a Family Network Expert photo historian Maureen A. Taylor helps readers analyze old family pictures in her Web-exclusive column Identifying Family Photographs. This week, she explains the importance of networking with relatives to obtain and identify images. http://www.familytreemagazine.com/photos/current.htm. If you have a family photo mystery for Taylor to solve, check out our Submission Guidelines at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/photos/photohelp.htm. SugarLand, Texas Emily Anne Croom Jan. 8 Ft. Bend Genealogy Society Topic: For the Settling of My Temporal Estate: Using Probate Records in Genealogy Contact the Ft. Bend County Library SugarLand branch at (281) 277-8934. Salt Lake City Paula Stuart-Warren Jan. 10-14 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy Topics: Never Enough Time! Strategies and Organizational Tips and Tools for Busy Researchers Finding Ancestral Places of Origin in U.S. Records The WPA Era: What It Created for Genealogists Miracles in County Courthouses and Town Hall Records Newspaper Research: The Dailies, Weeklies, and Beyond Genealogical and Historical Periodicals In Print and Online The U.S. National Archives: The Nation's Attic The Art of Genealogical Research Trips Contact the Utah Genealogical Association at http://www.infouga.org. St. Paul, Minn. Paula Stuart-Warren Jan. 29 Minnesota Historical Society Topic: Tracing Your Family History: Steps Online and Off Contact the Minnesota Historical Society at http://www.mnhs.org (click Library). GenSmarts Automated Genealogy Research - "the best genealogy add-on software " says Eastman's Newsletter. Only $24.95 at http://www.GenSmarts.com/ftmagDeals.asp RootsMagic Genealogy Software - "An excellent choice for any genealogist" says Family Tree Magazine. Get a free trial copy at http://www.RootsMagic.com PUBLISH YOUR FAMILY HISTORY. Preserve and share your precious family research. Personal coaching. Many options. www.GatewayPress.com New England Regional Genealogical Conference: "New England Crossroads" March 31- April 3, 2005 in Portland, Maine. Enjoy seminars, speakers and exhibits.  For more information and registration: www.nergc.org Smoky Mountain Reunion Chalets - 1-8 BR's.   Reunion packages, facilities and coordinator. 1-800-561-5691  www.yoursmokymountainreunion.com 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. 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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© 2004 F+W Publications, Inc. 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, OH 45236 All Rights Reserved December 2004 Issue Table of Contents Subscribe Now!   __________________