Group items tagged

Footnote.com for Historians, Genealogists and Many Others There's a new player on the genealogy field, and their launch this week announced a partnership with the foremost resource in the United States. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration announced a major new initiative to scan millions of historical documents and to make them available online. The documents will appeal to many different interests: genealogists, historians, re-enactors, railroad enthusiasts, aviation historians, and many, many others. Approximately 4.5 million pages are available at launch, and millions more historical documents will be digitized and placed online each year. The project is being launched in a partnership with a commercial firm called Footnote, Inc. The company's new web site went "live" at noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 10. I have spent some time using Footnote's new service and thought I would describe my experiences. Perhaps I should start with a bit of introduction. I suspect that many newsletter readers have never heard of Footnote, Inc. and may wonder, "Who is this new company that is going to digitize millions of National Archives records? Can they really make it happen?" In fact, Footnote, Inc. has been in business for years under the name iArchives, Inc., and has been involved in numerous genealogical and history-related high-tech projects. The company has been a contractor to several commercial and non-profit organizations, but its own corporate name has rarely been in the spotlight. The company has extensive experience in high-volume scanning of old records. About a year ago iArchives decided to launch its own product. While preparing for the launch of its huge new database, the company also changed its name to Footnote, Inc., to better reflect the collaborative model of its new business. NOTE:

Library CDs capture GH history It is now possible for Loutit District Library patrons to hear stories of what life was like in the Grand Haven area in the early 20th century in the words of local citizens. Loutit District Library received $16,314 from the Library of Michigan's Digitization for Preservation and Access grant program to preserve in digital form interviews with Grand Haven area citizens recorded by local historian Dr. David Seibold and others. The CDs can be checked out at the library. The project was developed in cooperation with the Tri-Cities Historical Museum. Museum volunteers conducted interviews from the late 1970s through the early 1900s to preserve first-hand recollections of life in the area. Very few of the people whose voices were captured on tape are still living. Among those available is an interview with Ray O'Malley, a survivor of the sinking of the Escanaba, who died recently. There are more than 100 CD-ROMs with more than 6,600 minutes of interviews. In addition, more than 50 interviews were transcribed and can be searched by keyword or printed. Each of the CD-ROMs includes historical photographs from the library's collection. Patrons can listen to the interviews and view the photographs at the library or check out a CD-ROM, which can be accessed on their personal computers. Beginning in June, these materials will be available on the library's Web site, www.loutitlilbrary.org, along with many other local history and genealogy resources.

At Grave Mappers, we are genealogists, researchers, historians, hobbyists, and cemetery lovers who have something in common—we want to preserve the priceless records found in cemeteries. Each of us has done this in our own unique way—walking through small deserted cemeteries and transcribing the headstone information; photographing headstones and sharing them on the internet; indexing and publishing burial listings from the cemeteries we visit.