Motor City Library Gives Honked-off Genealogists a Break
Michigan's Detroit Public Library (DPL), which last month announced that nonresidents would need a $100-a-year card to borrow books or use special collections—including the Burton Historical Collection of genealogical and local history materials—has made a concession to out-of-towners on research road trips. (Read our newsletter article on the fee at http://net.fwpublications.com/newsletters/NewsletterArchive/Family_Tree_
Magazine_E-Mail_Update/6_24_2004.htm.)
A Frequently Asked Questions sheet released on Tuesday states, "DPL values the customers who make special trips to Detroit to use the special collections. These customers can pay a daily use fee of $10 per day, to use any of the special collections." The $10 fee doesn't cover borrowing privileges. (See details at http://www.detroit.lib.mi.us.)
On Monday, John DuLong, leader of the grassroots group Advocates for the Burton Historical Collection (http://habitant.org/bhc) sent DPL director Nancy Skowronski and commission president Karen DiChiera an outline of his group's protest plan: Start a library donation boycott, and ask Michigan's attorney general to rule on the constitutionality of public library access charges for special collections. DPL spokesperson Conrad Wesling said he already had the literature listing the new $10 daily-use fee before he learned of the plan.
DuLong calls DPL's policy adjustment "good news" and says he'll consult with the Advocates group on any changes to its plan. "I do not know if the consensus will be to continue with the plan of action, to modify it or to move on to some other action. Clearly, we will continue to oppose any usage/access fees as a violation of the Michigan state constitution, which protects our free access to public libraries."
Nonresident borrowing fees are common, but an access fee surprised many, spurring backlash from genealogists across the Midwest after the June announcement. "I am aware of many private libraries that charge membership or use fees to access their collections, but I have never heard of a public library doing the same. In fact, it sounds like the very antithesis of a public library," wrote a Family Tree Magazine E-mail Update reader from Michigan, in response to an article on the fee.
Many feared DPL's access fee would start a trend among financially strapped institutions, making on-site ancestor-searching unaffordable. "In a summer research trip a genealogist can visit as many as 10 public libraries. Imagine if all of them charge a $100 fee to use their special local history and genealogy collections," DuLong says. DPL records show 60 to 75 percent of special collections users live outside Detroit.
The library defended the access fee by citing funding shortages that made impossible the in-depth assistance required of special collections librarians. The Michigan legislature cut DPL's funding in 2003, instead favoring a system that requires the library to compete with other institutions for money.
The nonresident fee won't affect interlibrary loan, and the policy makes several exceptions for students, Michicard library consortium cardholders and of Friends of the Detroit Public Library members.
Liquid Assets
In a deal orchestrated by the Cache County, Utah, Chamber of Commerce, the owner of genealogical publishing company Everton Publishers has donated its assets—including an 82,000-plus-item genealogical library, Everton's Family History Magazine, the Handybook for Genealogists and a Web site (not currently functional)—to the Logan, Utah, public library (http://library.loganutah.org).
Everton Publishers owner Bill Schjelderup, president of a Salt Lake City-based software company, acquired the company's assets in January 2004, but reportedly decided last month to get out of the publishing business. The Logan library will keep the $1.7 million collection of books, family newsletters, pedigrees, journals, maps and multimedia in off-site storage until librarians catalog the items and find them a permanent home. The materials aren't yet available for research.
Walter Everton founded his publishing company in 1947 and printed articles and genealogical queries in the homey-feeling, black-and-white Everton's Genealogical Helper. In 2001, the now-defunct Family History Network bought the publisher, renamed the magazine Everton's Family History Magazine and gave it a glossy color format.
The magazine has ceased publication, but it may be reincarnated under its original title. Walter S. Fuller, president of SBP, a Huntsville, Utah, independent publisher, helped arrange the donation. "There are plans to immediately bring back the design, format, and content of the Genealogical Helper," Fuller says in a written statement. He adds that after delays due to reorganization, the magazine, Web site and other company operations will resume "in short order." It's unclear what role Fuller plays in the reorganization.
"At this time we are waiting to hear from the city [of Logan] how the reorganization will be handled," Holly Hansen, the magazine's editor from 2001 until becoming company vice president in 2002, writes in an e-mail message. "But, I feel confident all those who subscribe, advertise or interact in any way with the magazine will receive additional information soon."
Two former Everton's Family History Newsline staffers have created a new e-mail newsletter, GenWeekly at http://www.genweekly.com.
Irish Roots Are Smiling
The New England Historic Genealogical Society (http://www.newenglandancestors.org) has forged a partnership with the Irish genealogy Web site Otherdays.com (http://www.otherdays.com) to let NEHGS' Research level members access the site's databases from NewEnglandAncestors.com.
Otherdays.com contains more than 100 databases, including the popular Griffith's Valuation, Placenames of Ireland, censuses, newspapers, gravestone inscriptions, vital records, wills, deeds and land records.
NEHGS Research memberships cost $75 per year. Access to the Otherdays.com databases isn't included in NEHGS' institutional membership, which offers NewEnglandAncestors.org database access to libraries and genealogical societies that have multiple Internet users at a single location.
Reality Reunions Hit Prime Time
Online genealogy database company MyFamily.com has teamed up with a reality-show production company to bring reunions to a television set near you.
NBC ordered up a pilot episode for "Extreme Reunions," a reality series that will present slick, epic-style reunions between long-lost loved ones, complete with back stories on the "characters." MyFamily.com, which offers an online "People Finder" service in addition to its genealogical databases, will recruit participants. The company already has an application at http://reunite.myfamily.com/tvsignup.asp for those wishing to be reunited on existing programs, such as CBS' "48 Hours" and the daytime talk show "Maury."
LMNO Productions—creator of gems such as FOX's "Boot Camp" and "Celebrity Boot Camp," NBC's "Race to the Altar," and the classier "Amazing Medical Stories" for The Learning Channel—will produce the pilot.
No word yet on whether LMNO will throw in typical reality-TV plot twists. Imagine how lively things could get if you had to eat smelly cheese or navigate a boot-camp obstacle course—blindfolded—before you could smooch your high-school sweetheart, or your then-best friend confesses she did lure him away for the last dance of the senior prom. On the plus side, maybe you'd get to vote off the aunt you last saw in 1971, who greets you by pinching your cheeks and declaring, "You still have your baby fat!"
Opportunities to Win!
You've got two ways to win with Family Tree Magazine this summer:
• Get a Free Copy of Trace Your Family History. E-mail your favorite five digital destinations from our 101 Best Web Sites list to FTMletters@fwpubs.com by July 30. Tell us in a sentence or two what you love about each site. We'll highlight the 25 top reader picks in the February 2005 Family Tree Magazine and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a free copy of the September 2004 Trace Your Family History beginner's guide to genealogy. (Find out more at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/trace04.asp.)
• Win an Epson PictureMate photo printer and more! Send us a research tip, method or idea that helped you get over a brick wall in your research. We'll publish the best ones in our special February 2005 fifth-anniversary issue. Five tipsters will win genealogy prize packages including software, CD-ROMs, family tree charts and Family Tree Books genealogy guides—and one lucky winner also will get an Epson PictureMate photo printer. Get contest details and enter your tip at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/brickwallcontest.asp.
Yesterday's News
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 helps you find out about the current events that affected your ancestors' lives. 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.
Surname Secrets
This week's tip comes from K. Harrison of Howell, Mich.:
When checking records for your ancestors, be mindful of all surnames, not just your family name. When a familiar surname shows up, be sure to check it out, as it may lead to data on your family. You can glean much information from the records of the neighbors and friends to your ancestors. They may even turn out to be part of the family!
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 2004 Preserve Your Family History, a special issue of Family Tree Magazine all about how to safely store and cherish your family photos, memorabilia, heirlooms and audiotapes. Learn more about it at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/store/cart.asp?type=m&action=a&magazine=FM0504.
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:
• Civil War Discussion Forums
http://www.cwoodcock.com/forum.shtml
Choose from nine existing discussion forums or create your own.
• Addall.com
http://www.addall.com
Use this book search tool to find in- or out-of-print books.
• Famous Wills
http://www.documentsonline.pro.gov.uk/PROB1wills.asp
See William Shakespeare's last wishes or 101 other famous British wills available (for a fee) from the UK National Archives.
• Soundexing and Genealogy
http://www.avotaynu.com/soundex.html
Perplexed by Soundex? Read all about the original and the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex systems.
. . . And the Rest is History
Does your genealogical goal involve gathering your research into a family history? To avoid a simple recitation of names, dates and events, you'll need a theme.
You're compelled to record your family history because you think it's important in some way—to you, to your family, to society. Ask yourself why you're researching your family history and who you're doing it for. Therein lies your theme.
Do you want to make a statement about life (the importance of family, the stability of true love, the inhumanity of war, etc.)? Is there a lesson you want your descendants to learn from your experience, or an ancestor's (how to cope with the loss of a spouse, how to live spiritually in a secular world, how to survive a crippling injury)? Is there a specific aspect of your family history you want to stress (an ancestor's role in a pivotal Civil War battle, your mother's part in the early feminist movement, your own work with inner city youth)? Or do you simply want to document the journey and survival of your family line?
A few more writing tips:
- Read up on what life was like in general during the time period you're researching.
- "Plot" the events of your family history, using your research notes to guide you.
- Select at least one key event—an ancestor's immigration, the Depression-era decline of the family business, or your father's military experience—and research the social history surrounding that event.
- If you write about a national event, tell why it's important and include its impact on your ancestors. Don't throw it in just because it happened during an ancestor's lifetime.
Excerpted from the WritersOnlineWorkshop.com "Focus on the Personal/Family Memoir" series. Learn more at http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/viewworkshop.asp?workshopid=1017.
An Afternoon Outing
Expert photo historian Maureen A. Taylor helps readers analyze old family pictures in her Web-exclusive column Identifying Family Photographs. This week, she tries to determine if the four girls in a photo are sisters.
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.
Lufkin, Texas
Emily Anne Croom
July 23-24
Angelina College 8th Annual Genealogy Conference
Topics:
- Where in the World? Using Maps in Genealogy
- Timely Tools for Genealogists: Using Timelines
- Resolving Conflicting Evidence
Contact Angelina College Community Services at (936) 633-5206 or visit www.angelina.cc.tx.us/genealogy.htm.
Lancaster, Texas
Emily Anne Croom
August 10
Lancaster Genealogical Society
Topic: You're Known by the Company You Keep: Cluster Genealogy, an Essential Tool in Research
Contact Lela Evans at the Lancaster Library, (972) 227-1080, ext. 20.
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 - "amazingly easy and convenient" says Family Tree Magazine. Get a free trial copy at http://www.GenSmarts.com
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