THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

It would appear from multiple reports on Facebook that RootsTech's record-breaking audience also included a number of intellectual property thieves, some who knew better and some who didn't. You need explicit permission to take pictures of a presentation or copy the handout. Without that permission you might as well be snatching their wallet.

Friend and colleague Judy Russell was there and sets us all straight at her blog, The Legal Genealogist. I was not in attendance (I don't do celebrities), but perhaps the organizers could find someone to croon a catchy tune about the Eighth Commandment and/or federal copyright law.

And it's possible to do that without insulting your audience. I remember the country auctioneer in western Illinois who always used to tell people to keep an eye on their stuff: "I know everybody here is honest, but we don't know who might show up later!"

Have you climbed on board?

If your New Year's resolutions include getting more serious about genealogy, consider subscribing to the Board for the Certification of Genealogists' three-times-a-year publication On Board. At the link you can also view the table of contents for all back issues up to and including the January 2014 issue in which Judy G. Russell, AKA The Legal Genealogist, discusses where DNA fits into genealogical proof these days. (OK, just one quote that needs to be repeated on all social media at every opportunity: "DNA by itself cannot answer even the simplest genealogical question.") Arguably one of the best things about On Board is its brevity. Each article is concise and readable.

You don't have to be board-certified, you don't even have to want to be board-certified, in order to subscribe and benefit from this succinct publication. And if you aren't sure, flip over to the skillbuilding part of the website where you can read more than two dozen article from back issues, dating back to 1995, by highly qualified authors including Elizabeth Shown Mills, Kathleen W. Hinckley, Amy Johnson Crow, Thomas W. Jones, Helen F. M. Leary, and many more. My favorite, however, is by Anonymous, entitled "A Judge's Notes from an Application for Certified Genealogist," and it's a good antidote to the strange but widespread misconception that certification portfolios are evaluated on minute nitpicking details.




Judy G. Russell, "DNA and the Reasonably Exhaustive Search," On Board 20(1):1, January 2014.


Harold Henderson, "Have you climbed on board?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 3 January 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Moderately Recent Blog Posts I Have Enjoyed #2

Diana Dretske at Illuminating Lake County History posted a detailed appreciation of John Easton's 1844-1846 store ledger from the hamlet of Half Day. I became acquainted with the ledger's transcription when I had a research interest in the immediate area; I was unaware of its near-obliteration when the purchasers of Easton's property later used it as a scrapbook in which to post newspaper clippings! Good reading and images both for people interested in Lake County, Illinois, or in the enormous potential of this under-used resource.

The indefatigable Judy Russell at The Legal Genealogist asks the key question of relevant Ancestry.com officials. She doesn't put it this way, but I will: Since Ancestry's advertising often does not encourage genealogical education, and since it hosts many erroneous trees, how can the company hope to make clear the limitations of its new autosomal DNA test when test results are being connected to those same erroneous trees? Is this anything more than the 21st-century version of pasting scrapbook items onto a potentially valuable genealogy resource and just making everyone more confused than before? If you think I'm over the top on this, Judy is more judicious than I and has done her homework. Read her post and draw your own conclusions.

In an earlier post I uncritically repeated Ancestry.com's statement at Wednesday night's NGS conference reception that the company has 10 billion records. James Tanner at Genealogy's Star does some badly needed investigation and finds this kind of claim to be more promotional than informational.

Please note: I am a long-time and continuing subscriber to Ancestry and have benefited enormously from its work. But it should be possible to earn a profit and educate the public at the same time, and I believe that genealogists in general (and professionals and bloggers in particular) have a role to play in encouraging its executives to keep both objectives clearly in view.


Harold Henderson, "Moderately Recent Blog Posts I Have Enjoyed #2" Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 15 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Read "The Legal Genealogist" -- It's The Law

You may well have met newly minted blogger J. G. Russell already, whether in a class or on a genealogy discussion list. She's the one who doesn't have to say, "I'm not a lawyer, but . . ." when answering a question about dower or copyright.

An astute attorney and genealogist, now she's blogging at The Legal Genealogist, and it's the place to be for those of us who have recognized (with varying degrees of reluctance) that you cannot do top-notch genealogy without knowing (1) what the law was at a given place and time, (2) what people thought the law was at a given place and time, and (3) how often they obeyed either one.

Recent posts include a reminder of IGHR registration at Samford, Martin Luther King Jr.'s family tree, and a series of posts on how old you had to be to do various things in various times and places. Wow -- that alone is worth the price of admission.