The Genealogy Guys Podcast #202 - 2010 May 9

The Guys discuss their recent trips, including a great visit to Salt Lake City for the NGS Conference. This week's news includes: Ancestry.com made several announcements at the NGS Conference: A new search engine facility allows for better searching, including wildcard search at the beginning of names and the ability to drill down to all database results for a specific area. A new wiki at Ancestry.com includes all of their two great books, The Source and Ancestry's Red Book, and will allow continuous additions and updates. Ancestry.com announced a new version of its Family Tree Maker coming later this year for the Macintosh. FamilySearch.org announced the addition of 300 million new names to its site. Randy Riley, the Special Collections Manager at the Library of Michigan, received the prestigious Filby Award for Genealogy Librarianship at the NGS Conference on 30 April 2010. Congratulations, Randy! George discusses his meeting at NGS with Gary Gibb and Chad Milliner of Ancestry.com to discuss problems with the new images for the 1860 U.S. federal censuses at their site. George explains the cause and that Gary is evaluating possible corrective actions. Listener email includes: Barbara discusses her findings that some census pages are imaged two to a page and that "missing" families may be further down the screen. Drew comments that missed areas can often be found at the end of an enumeration district's census pages. Kaye has heard George on both this podcast and the Genealogy Gems Podcast. She also asks George about family Bibles for the Alexander families of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, from which they are both descended. Claire is a relatively new listener and only 25 years old. She is working as a probate genealogist for International Missing Heir Finders and is studying to become a Certified Genealogist. George shares that there are videos at YouTube of early San Francisco. One shows the city prior to the 1906 earthquake at http://tinyurl.com/SF1905-1905A and another shows the damage after the earthquake at http://tinyurl.com/2a7q55p. James asks for an explanation of dower rights with regard to U.S. land transactions. He also asks for suggestions for how to determine the right "Edith" in his English research. Dave shares the fact that he discovered in the 1930 U.S. census that his grandparents were neighbors. He also asks for advice about recording of place names listed in census records. Margaret in Dublin, Ireland, offers details for Cheryl regarding her County Tyrone ancestor. Angie provides an update on her problem with her Samuel Chambers/Hilderbrand. The Guys discuss their upcoming conference activities. George heartily recommends attendance at the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree on 11-13 June 2010 in Burbank. He also encourages you to watch the webinar he did for the SCGS titled "Getting the Most out of a Genealogy Conference" at their website and at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/RootsTV.htm. Drew discusses his newest toy - an Apple iPad.