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Illuminated Heritage

August 29, 2006

Tuesday’s Treasure

More fair stuff! This is when the Lake County Fair was in Libertyville. There’s a very nice exhibit of fair postcards that the Cook Memorial Public Library has put together. This cutie is a promotional piece. Enjoy!

posted by Kay at 2:00 pm | Comments (0)

August 28, 2006

Round Table Building at Windsor Castle

Ok, it’s not really THE Knights of the Round Table, but it’s the round building that housed the round table for the 300 members of the Knights of the Garter. It was built by Edward III in the 14th century for this purpose and was just recently excavated at Windsor Castle. They’ve also found some various artifacts as well.

posted by Kay at 10:13 am | Comments (0)

Orphan Works and Sec. 108

The latest issue of RLG News has, among other interesting things, an excellent FAQ on the possible impacts on digitization projects from the Orphan Works and Section 108 issues. This is an easy-to-read and understand article that lays it on the line of what would be required/not required for each. Something for you to read while we do the Digital Past upgrade.

posted by Kay at 9:57 am | Comments (0)

August 25, 2006

Digital Past Upgrade Starts Monday

That’s right, 6:30 am Monday morning. For those finishing up and clearing out Acquisition Station, add and build queues, you’ll have the weekend. You accounts will be locked Monday morning at 6:30 and will be unlocked after you notify me that you’ve downloaded and installed the new Acquisition Station.

Stay Tuned!

posted by Kay at 2:25 pm | Comments (0)

Genealogy TV Channel

Hot on the wires today is the news of Roots Television “Where History Meets Heritage” and, quite honestly, all anyone knows is the website: http://www.rootstelevision.com/ But hey, it’s coming in Sept so we all better keep an eye on it!!

Yesterday there was also news of a Wi-Fi channel FamilyTree TV which holds some promise, if you want to watch your TV on your computer, I guess? Another thing to keep an eye on…

posted by Kay at 10:19 am | Comments (0)

August 24, 2006

Royalty and Nobility of Europe databases

I thought I’d check out 2 sites today that I ran across at some point or another.

The first is the Directory of Royal Genealogical Data which focuses mostly on British royalty, but as they say, with the intermarriages, it covers a lot of Europe. I found this easy to use both in searching and browsing. I would keel over and die if I found any relation of mine in the Royalty listings so I just did some obvious searches and browsed around in the German States. Information is provided about many many many people. They have a general catalog of the names and then the names organized by first name and last name. If you have royalty in your family, this would be worth a look.

The second is from Germany and is called A WWW Data Base of European Nobility, focusing on the higher nobility. An English version as well as the German, but I have to say it’s rather confusing. I ran across this years ago and it hasn’t gotten any easier to use. I tried the search on “bieberstein”, they were vons and nobility, but instead of saying “nothing found” or displaying results, I only get a confusing “next” link on the results page. I don’t know if this is broken or if I’m not following directions correctly. I searched on “a”, thinking it would start at the top of an alphabetical list but instead it brought up a bunch of Danes that had “af” in the name, which appears to be something like “of” or “von”. It does have some useful lists though – a list of the Knights of the Garter and Knights of the GOlden Fleece. You can browse nobility by European country which is helpful if you know the exact region. For me, where they could be in any one of several, not so useful. The coat of arms database search works much better but even though it found those owned by “bieberstein” it couldn’t show them because the database was incomplete. That’s ok, I always like to look in Armorial General by Reitstap (which is available at the Arlington Heights Library and probably some of our other libraries, but I’ve used their copy so I know). Anyway, the Coats of Arms section is nice and has lots of good information, if you’re into that like I am. There is a lot more information on this site as well so don’t be afraid to go there just because the search didn’t work so well. You just might get lucky!

posted by Kay at 10:50 am | Comments (0)

August 23, 2006

Smithsonian Photography Initiative

Perhaps I’m just very easily amused, but I really enjoyed poking around the Smithsonian Photography Initiative Site. As the site states:”The Smithsonian Photography Initiative is devoted to the presentation and study of these photographic images, viewing photography as an art form, a record keeper, and a cross-disciplinary medium that encompasses science, history, popular culture, and more.” They have over 13 million photographs in the collection. You can wander around by choosing a building “Locate a Collection”, or you can search for something that interests you “Search”, you can go through the “Exhibitions,” or go to “Enter the Frame.” This is a pretty cool tool – you can click on keywords to view various photos and then drag them to a “sequence” which you can reorder and save. You can also add your own keywords. This is really a very cool display of tagging and other newer web technologies. Some photos you can zoom in on and others you can view in a slideshow. This is fun! You should go check it out…

posted by Kay at 3:47 pm | Comments (0)

August 22, 2006

Tuesday’s Treasure

It’s state/county fair time! Here’s a trip down memory lane of when the Lake County Fair was in Wauconda from the Wauconda Public Library. Be sure to use zoom and pan to read the article!

posted by Kay at 2:00 pm | Comments (0)

Upcoming Chicago Genealogical Society Events

I get a lot of different invitations and flyers in the mail but I thought I’d pass along these two upcoming events from CGS.

First, they have a tour of the Belgian Community in Logan Square on Sat. Oct. 7 at 1:30pm. There will be a tour of the area and a presentation by Krista Reynen about the Belgian immigration to Chicago and how to do research on this group. If you want further information, drop me a line.

Secondly, on Sept 9th at their meeting, Gary T Johnson, President of the Chicago History Museum will be their guest speaker. He will be talking about what will be new for family history researchers at the Chicago History Museum (previously known as the Chicago Historical Society). The meeting will be at the Newberry Library.

posted by Kay at 1:20 pm | Comments (0)

August 17, 2006

Name Popularity

Thanks to the head’s up from Dick Eastman, I found this fun resource for the Census Bureau. It ranks last names, female first names and male first names in order of how often they appear in the 1990 US Census. As many of you know, I have a fascination for names, so I had a great time checking this out! I found that neither Schlumpf nor Biberstein/Bieberstein were on the last name list. However, Kay ranks 272nd on the list! Wow, you mean there’s more than just me out there? Good to know I’m not alone…

So, take a break and wander on over. Use the ctrl-F (or Find) feature in your browser to make your life a whole lot easier!!

posted by Kay at 10:22 am | Comments (0)

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