Major Announcement from Footnote.com

ENTIRE U.S. CENSUS GOES INTERACTIVE WITH FOOTNOTE.COM

-Footnote.com to feature original documents from every publicly available
U.S. Federal Census from 1790 to 1930-

Lindon, UT – October 29, 2009 – Today Footnote.com (http://www.footnote.com) announced it will digitize and create a searchable database for all publicly available U.S. Federal Censuses ranging from the first U.S. Census taken in 1790 to the most current public census from 1930.

Through its partnership with The National Archives, Footnote.com will add more than 9.5 million images featuring over a half a billion names to its extensive online record collection.

“The census is the most heavily used body of records from the National Archives,” explains Cynthia Fox, Deputy Director at the National Archives. “In addition to names and ages, they are used to obtain dates for naturalizations and the year of immigration. This information can then be used to locate additional records.”

With over 60 million historical records already online, Footnote.com will use the U.S. Census records to tie content together, creating a pathway to discover additional records that previously have been difficult to find.

“We see the census as a highway leading back to the 18th century,” explains Russ Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com. “This Census Highway provides off-ramps leading to additional records on the site such as naturalization records, historical newspapers, military records and more. Going forward, Footnote.com will continue to add valuable and unique collections that will enhance the census collection.”

To date, Footnote.com has already completed census collections from two key decades: 1930 and 1860. As more census decades are added to the site, visitors to Footnote.com can view the status for each decade and sign up for an email notification when more records are added to the site for a particular year.

View the Census Progress Page on Footnote.com.

In addition to making these records more accessible, Footnote.com is advancing the way people use the census by creating an interactive experience. Footnote Members can enrich the census records by adding their own contributions. For any person found in the census, users can:

• Add comments and insights about that person
• Upload and attach scanned photos or documents related to that person
• Generate a Footnote Page for any individual that features stories, a photo gallery, timeline and map
• Identify relatives found in the census by clicking the I’m Related button

See the 1930 Interactive Census record for Jimmy Stewart.

“The most popular feature of our Interactive Census is the I’m Related button,” states Roger Bell, Senior Vice President of Product Development at Footnote.com. “This provides an easy way for people to show relations and actually use the census records to make connections with others that may be related to the same person.”

Footnote.com works with the National Archives and other organizations to add at least a million new documents and photos a month to the site. Since launching the site in January 2007, Footnote.com has digitized and added over 60 million original source records to the site, including records pertaining to the Holocaust, American Wars, Historical Newspapers and more.

“We will continue to move aggressively to add records to the site, specifically those that are requested by our members and others that are not otherwise available on the Internet,” said Wilding.

Visit http://www.footnote.com/census/ to see how the census on Footnote.com can truly be an interactive experience.


Additional Resources
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About Footnote, Inc.
Footnote.com is a subscription website that features searchable original documents, providing users with an unaltered view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. At Footnote.com, all are invited to come share, discuss, and collaborate on their discoveries with friends, family, and colleagues. For more information, visit http://www.footnote.com.

EWGS Presidents: Samuel Pool Weaver

2010 will be the 75th anniversary of EWGS, but as early as 1932 Florence Brown and Mary Elizabeth Dow Maltbie had met at the Carnegie Library (1st and Cedar) and discussed forming a genealogical society. On October 12, 1933, Mrs. Maltbie, her daughter Mrs. Rawlings, Mrs. Mercer, Mrs. Pinkham and Mrs. Wetherill met on the mezzanine of the Davenport Hotel to plan a Historical/Genealogical Society. The DAR had been working on the Washigton Pioneer project and this led to the idea of forming a genealogical society.

On Tuesday January 31, 1935, nine people met around a large round table in the mezzanine of the Davenport Hotel to form Eastern Washington Genealogical Society. Founder and organizer Mary Elizabeth Dow Maltbie conducted the meeting. Elected to the first offices: Samuel Weaver President (he had consented to be elected for a two year term, but was not present and never served); Mrs. David Brown, Vice President; Achsah Adelia Maltbie Rawlings (daughter of Mary Maltbie), 2nd Vice President; Mrs. G.W. Rogers, Secretary; Mrs. J.J. Thiel, Corresponding Secretary; Mrs. L.S. Wood, Treasurer; and Mrs. A.B. Keith, Librarian. The Board of Directors elected were Mrs. Louis H. Pinkham, Miss Mattie Wetherill, Mr. Hiram B. Ferris and Mrs. Maltbie. Initial Dues were 50 cents. Goals of the society were 'to create interest in genealogical and historical research; to assist members in searching for and determining their own ancestral lines; to collect genealogical and historical materials; and to assist the Spokane Public Library in building up the Genealogy section by securing books, magazines and manuscripts.'

--from the Volume 22 of the Bulletin on the 50th anniversary of EWGS in 1985.

Samuel Pool Weaver was the first President of EWGS, and as noted above never served a day as president. He was born in Greensburg Pennsylvania October 20, 1882 son of Jacob Peter Weaver (1843-1927) Greensburg Pennsyvania and Mary Jane Pool (1848-1917). He had at least two wives: first one was Elsa Eberbach of Ann Arbor Michigan born July 24, 1885. They had one son William Pool Weaver. In 1957 he married Mary Helen McCrea, daughter of Mr and Mrs. William McCrea. She was a librarian. Samuel was a lawyer and moved from Cheney to Spokane in 1922 and practiced law till 1939. From 1928 he was also president of Great Northwest Life Insurance Company till he retired in 1955, a professor of constitutional law at Gonzaga Law School from 1929 to 1948. He was also a WWI veteran, having been inducted at Cheney, Washington October 19, 1918, and served with the Students Army Tng (training?) Corps at the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington to discharge. He was a private. He was honorably discharged December 17, 1918. In the Spokane Public Library there are two books by Samuel; Autobiography of a Pennsylvania Dutchman [1953] in the Northwest Room. Very interesting book, but no mention of being an EWGS president. The second book is Weaver, Kiehl, Pool, Bierer-Muller families; genealogical data and charts. [1953]. This book is in the Genealogy section on the third floor. I wondered if he was related to my Pools, but his was from England and mine were from Holland. Samuel Pool Weaver died in Miami January 23, 1963 and is buried in Fairmount Cemetery.

Do you Volunteer?

The Wizard of ID has been running cartoons on volunteering
You can see previous days by clicking the previous link near the bottom of the cartoon.

Ten-Spot for Technology?

Do You Have a Ten-Spot for Technology?


Do you think $10 could buy you a new, state of the art computer? Well, maybe not one for your home but it could potentially buy a lot of new computers, printers and software for the libraries. We’re looking for $10 from 2700 people in order to raise the $27,000 required in matching funds needed to take advantage of year two of the Gates Opportunity Online Technology Grant. The match this year is greater than it was last year. In year one we had to obtain just 30% in matching funds and that was achieved thanks to The Johnston-Fix Foundation, The Friends of Spokane Public Library, The Inland Northwest Community Foundation, Cathy and Charles Simon and The Spokane Public Library Foundation. Their generosity enabled us to access nearly $43,000 from the Gates Foundation resulting in an infusion of $57,200 into the library. This money was used to purchase new computers for all six branches replacing many of the outdated computers we were using.

We are now working on year two of the grant and have to raise a 50% match in order to qualify for $27,300 from the Gates Foundation. This is where we need your help. The Spokane Public Library Foundation is handling the fundraising for these matching funds and they have donation boxes in all of the library branches as well as at all Global Credit Union locations (thank you Global Credit Union!). We only have until March 1, 2010 to raise this match or we lose the Gates Foundation monies. Look for the "ten-spot for technology" donation boxes and please consider dropping in a 10-spot (or more) so that we can reach our goal and continue to upgrade the computers in our libraries. Imagine our success if everyone who came to our libraries kicked in $10 (over 85,000 visits to the libraries just in the month of July)!
Why is this so important? Computer usage at the libraries is growing like crazy. Approximately 600 people use the Internet computers every day and countless others use our word processing computers and wireless access. More and more customers depend on the library’s computers as their own computers age out or they cancel their Internet at home. The monies will also allow us to expand our computer education classes and create a mobile computer education lab that can be used at all of the branches. Libraries are an integral part of the information age and good computer access is key! Think about what just $10 can do"

For more information please call The Spokane Public Library Foundation at 444-5318. Donations in check form should be made out to The Spokane Public Library Foundation. They can be dropped off at any branch or mailed directly to the Foundation at 906 W. Main Ave, Spokane, WA 99201.

EWGS uses these computers for the Internet Genealogy classes, so hopefully our members will help.

Happy Birthday, RootsTelevision!

RootsTelevision is three years old today; can you believe it? To celebrate, they've listed their top 10 videos here! Stop by and wish them many happy returns of the day in the comments section and enjoy the videos!

WSGS State Conference: Day Three, by Miriam

EWGS team blogger Charles Hansen shared his excellent summaries of the conference held September 11 - 13th at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane here, here, and here with posts of photos here and here. I thought I'd share mine as well, and we welcome any of our readers who attended to share theirs in the comments at the end of this post.

EWGS members enjoy breakfast in the Elizabethan room at the WSGS state conference

On Sunday, I was able to sleep in a bit before heading back to the Davenport for breakfast and the last presentation by Megan. Breakfast was held in the Elizabethan Room, so called because of its beautifully ornate medieval-style wood carvings all around the room. The meal was a delicious buffet of freshly-baked muffins and sweet breads, fresh fruits, oatmeal, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, quiche, yogurt, coffee, tea, milk, and fruit juices. Megan and I had been meaning to get a photo taken together all weekend, but had both been too busy to do so. I had bought fresh batteries for my camera the previous afternoon, so was able to get a photo taken. Megan took one on her iPhone and posted it on Facebook and Twitter with a caption, "Guess who?", hoping one of the many geneabloggers would respond.

Miriam Robbins Midkiff and Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak
(Megan is very tall and was wearing heels, and I am very short and was wearing flats!)

We held the last drawing for door, table, and raffle prizes, and then listened to Megan speak on "Newspaper Research Online." She highlighted some of the best known and largest collections, but also mentioned some of the smaller and specialized ones. She also spoke about obituary websites, since they tie in so well to newspaper sites, but cautioned that while many of our ancestors may not have had a regular obituary, it may be possible to find out about their deaths from regular newspaper articles written about them, especially if they died in an accident. The main thing I learned is that many of the large subscription websites, such as Ancestry, have contracts with newspaper sites that provide digitized issues for certain time periods that fluctuate instead of remain static. So if you find an article about an ancestor or relative, copy or download it while you can. Six months down the road, the coverage for those years may no longer be available through that subscription website. The advantage is, if you can't find articles for your family now, you may be able to find them at a later date when different years of issues are made available.

Megan takes questions from the audience after her presentation

All too soon, the conference had come to a close. But the day wasn't over yet! I met with some of my fellow conference committee members for coffee at a nearby mall to kill some time before lunch. We mulled over our successes and challenges at the conference, and even started planning for an event for Family History Month in October! Then we walked across the Spokane River to Anthony's Home Port restaurant to confirm our reservations. The others remained while Donna Potter Phillips and I returned to the Davenport, visiting the whole way and then met Megan, asking if she would rather walk or ride to the restaurant. She preferred walking, so the three of us had a pleasant stroll and chat back to the restaurant, while Donna pointed out historical points of interest along the way.

At Anthony's, we had a nice luncheon (I picked my favorite dish, a crab salad) with Megan and about ten of us who had served on the conference committee present. It was nice to just relax and "let our hair down." We wondered why none of the geneabloggers had commented on the photo Megan had posted to Facebook; Megan asked if maybe Thomas had organized the bloggers for some event that had kept them away! Finally, Bill Hire, EWGS president, got out his iPhone and posted a caption identifying Megan and myself. :-)

After lunch, Donna, Megan, and I strolled back to the Davenport and then said our farewells. After all our hard work, I think we all felt like the conference had been a roaring success! In many ways, it was hard to return to work the next day; transitioning from my genealogy life to my family and work life was a challenge! I am very proud of the work our committee did and look forward to attending future state conferences. The 2010 Washington State Genealogical Society's state conference will be hosted by the Lewis County Genealogical Society. Stay tuned to their website to keep updated on this event!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Looking north from genealogy reference desk.